Catspaw
by Stutley Constable
Summary: A mysterious death in a hotel room and a missing suspect bring Harry a new case. There's always more than meets the eye but when Lara Raith gets involved it could be deadly. Spoilers up to and including Turn Coat. Story Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Legal Note:** I do not own any of the characters associated with the Dresden Files. I do not have any legal right to use them or any other proprietary material originating from these books. This story was done just for the fun of it. Not for profit. If you like it please tell me. If you don't like it please tell me why with particulars but not excessive detail.

**Summary:** A mysterious death in a hotel room and a missing suspect bring Harry a new case. There's always more than meets the eye but when Lara Raith gets involved it could be deadly. Spoilers up to and including Turn Coat.

**Author's Note:** I wish to thank both MsAurora and Nytd for technical assistance with the matters of biology in this story. The concept was mine but I lacked the needed background to make things make sense. If you enjoy good reading you may wish to look up their stories. Both of these ladies are on my favorite authors list.

**Catspaw  
Chapter 1**

I woke up to the sound of the phone in my ear. It rang again as I pushed Mister out of my lap earning myself a disgruntled glare. I had fallen asleep in my chair instead of the bed. Having just wrapped up two minor cases I'd been able to pay my rent and get the Beetle out of the garage with a little cash to spare. So I'd gone to Mac's and gotten myself a steak and three of his dark ales. I guess I'd had too many things to do lately. I was still tired. The phone rang again reminding me that there was no rest for the wizard.

"Dresden," I grumbled into the receiver. I'm not at my best first thing after waking up.

"Harry, it's Murphy," Sergeant Karrin Murphy's voice crackled through the line. She and her fellow detectives at Special Investigations sometimes called me in on cases that were beyond the normal methods of investigation. Once upon a time I had been a fairly regular visitor to the offices of SI. But after Karrin, then Lieutenant Murphy, had helped me out on a particularly difficult case and the rescue of the girl who had since become my apprentice budget cuts had rendered my services too expensive. The help Murphy had given had cost her her rank and seniority and any hope for advancement. It had cost my friend a large portion of her pride as well. I could never repay that kind of friendship to my satisfaction. But that didn't stop me from trying.

"What's up, Murph?" I asked standing and stretching the kinks out of my back.

"I need you to come down to the morgue." Murphy sounded tired. "I want you to look at a body. Butters has some questions."

Her mention of Butters brought to mind the image of a little geek with perpetually unruly, dark hair, glasses and a passion for polka music unrivaled on two continents. He also had one of the best brains for the sort of thing Murphy and I dealt with regularly. We both trusted him. If he had questions then this was not the typical fare.

"I'll be there as soon as I can." We said our goodbyes and I sorted myself out. I took Mouse, my big grey dust mop of a dog, out briefly and then got my staff. The last few visits I'd made to the medical examiner's building had not been all that fun. I mean a morgue is never a place that I want to visit but there are worse times than others. When zombies are involved that's one of the worst times.

I parked the mighty Blue Beetle and walked to the big glass doors that let into the lobby. Murphy was waiting for me and we brushed through the security door like it wasn't there. I'm a lot taller than Karrin is but I found I had to stretch my stride to keep up with her. I got the feeling this was important.

"What can you tell me?" I asked as we strode down the hallway.

"Female. We found her in a hotel room." Murphy's voice was grim. "Forensics is still going over the room. She looked like she'd been there a couple of days but the clerk at the desk said she'd checked in last night with a male of average height in his mid thirties. When the cleaning crew found her this morning he wasn't anywhere. No security cameras in the halls and the room was on the ground floor so there were no shots of him in the elevators. He didn't go through the lobby when he left."

"And Butters has questions for me?"

"He says he's never seen anything like this." Murphy gave me a glance out of the corner of her eye as we reached the exam room door. "Hope you didn't have breakfast."

Inside we found Butters leaning back against his desk with a pensive look on his face. His eyes were sparkling behind his glasses as he turned to face us. He gave me a half hearted smile.

"Hi, Harry," Butters said extending a hand. "Hope you didn't have breakfast."

Great. So much encouragement. "I keep hearing that. What's the situation?"

For answer Butters crossed to the gurney in the middle of the room with its blanket shrouded occupant. He drew the blanket back to reveal the head and torso of a woman. I can say it was a woman because Murphy had already told me it was. My stomach heaved and I barely kept everything where it was supposed to be. The corpse's face was bloated and discolored a nasty shade of purple. There were similar bloated patches on her shoulders, arms, chest and stomach. The luxuriant mane of black hair looked far to healthy to adorn such a foul thing as what lay on the table. I took in several deep breaths and got my revulsion under control. I shoved my emotions into a little box at the back of my brain and told them to shut their eyes for a few minutes. I'd seen a lot of awful things in the last few years but this was among the worst. This sort of thing shouldn't happen to anyone much less a woman. I looked at the body. I could see no signs of anything I recognized as paranormal. Extending my hand over the corpse I also extended my senses. I tried to feel something. Anything. And there it was. A flicker of magical residue. I yanked my hand back and closed off my senses again.

"Something?" Murphy asked dispassionately.

"Something," I told her as Butters covered the corpse. "I don't know what. But yeah. Something."

"So you haven't seen anything like this before?" Butters asked.

"No," I said distancing myself from the thing on the table. "Any idea of who she is? What caused all those... marks?"

"Her drivers license says her name was Katharine Ignatio. Age thirty two." Murphy handed me the license in a little plastic bag. The woman in the photo looked nothing like what was on the table except for the hair. Normally the DMV has a knack for taking absolutely terrible pictures. They always make you look like you should be on a wanted poster or an ad for a missing person. If you have a bad side that's the angle they will get the picture from. Mine made me look like a reject from the Manson Family. Katharine Ignatio's picture looked like it had been done at Glamour Shots. Even as small as it was the picture showed her to be stunning. No one was that lucky. I looked a little closer and then glanced back to the now shrouded body. The woman looked familiar somehow.

"Have you been able to track down any family?" I asked suspecting I knew the answer already.

"No family in the city or surrounding counties." Murphy was looking at me in that cop way she has. "No employer. She lived alone in the Gold Coast. No friends that we've been able to find."

"Waldo, what caused her to look like that?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," He admitted. "I've never seen that sort of damaged before."

"What could have done it?" I pressed. "Why does she look like that? Was she beaten?"

"No. When I first saw her I thought she must have been hit by a truck or something but there aren't any broken bones or abrasions. The only thing I found aside from the disruptions was indications that she had recently had sex. A lot of it."

I nodded. It was making a little sense now. I asked, "Disruptions?"

"The markings are caused by massive damage to her cells," Butters said moving to his desk. "I took some samples and did some microscopic pictures. These show the cells from some of the disrupted areas."

I took the print from him. I'm not much when it comes to biology so I can't really describe what I saw but it was sort of like Spaghetti O's when you drop the pan on the floor. I raised an eyebrow at him. Very Spok-like.

"The only thing that would cause damage like that would be an extreme atmospheric pressure change. Maybe," Butters said pointing to the parts of the picture he thought I should pay attention to.

"Atmospheric pressure change? Like the bends?" I said handing the print back to him.

"No. The bends or decompression sickness is caused by inert gases building up in the body. That's not what happened here." Butters shook his head. "This is more radical. It's almost like she was exposed to hard vacuum but that doesn't really fit either. Her cells were burst from the inside. Not boiled."

"Harry," Murphy looked at me hard. "You know her?"

"No." I didn't know this woman but I knew her family. "You aren't going to like this, Murph."

"Are you about to tell me that you can't tell me anything?" Murphy was about to be angry and I wanted to head her off before she started threatening me with something.

"It's what I have to tell you that you won't like." I raised my hand in a placating gesture and she eased down on the cop throttle. "I think she's related to the Raiths. She's a White Court vampire."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2:**

"Crap," Murphy frowned her displeasure at the corpse. "What killed her?"

"I don't know, Murph," I walked over to the blanket covered figure. "There is only a slight residue of magic. If she'd died a few days ago that would make sense in a way. If it was a spell that killed her the magic would fade with a couple of sunrises. Usually a spell is gone with just one sunrise. With something powerful enough to kill there's a slower degradation."

"But it could have been magic?" Murphy pressed.

"There's magic present but..." I trailed off.

"But?" Murphy prompted.

"But there should be more," I frowned. "A lot more. Murph, it's like finding a bullet wound and a bullet fragment but no exit wound and no bullet."

"Could you do something like this?" Murphy asked her eyes narrow. I knew she wasn't suggesting that I was responsible for the woman's death. We'd gotten past that sort of thing.

"I doubt it," I rubbed my chin. "Besides the amount of power it would take there would have to be a lot of skill. Refinement. I'm good but not this good."

"So the person who could have done this would be strong and skilled," Murphy stepped up next to me and stared down at the blanket. "He'd be dangerous as hell."

"And then some," I agreed. "It just doesn't make sense. There are easier ways to kill a White Court vampire than exploding their cells."

After I left the medical examiner's building I headed back into town and decided to stop in at my office. There were a few things I needed to file and it wouldn't hurt me to clean the place up a bit. Murphy had promised to call me if she got a lead on the guy that had been with Katharine Ignatio last night. I had to practically force her to give me her word on it. She usually knows when she's getting out of her depth but now and then she forgets. When it comes to the safety of the citizens she has sworn to protect Murphy can be like a lioness protecting her cubs.

I parked down the block from my office and after giving a friendly wave to the guard at the desk I took the stairs up to the fifth floor. I don't like elevators in general and the one in my building less than most. I'd had a really bad experience in it a few years ago and I think the elevator might be holding a grudge. My office door opened with a squeak of hinges and I entered dropping the wards I'd recently placed on the threshold. Since it's a place of business there isn't much of a threshold but I wasn't going to just leave the place unwarded with the sorts of enemies I had made over the past several years. Nothing was out of place and I settled in to the routine of filing and cleaning. I had just put my dustpan and broom back when there was a knock on the door.

"Come in." I said stepping behind my desk and laying my hand casually on my spare blasting rod. I'd made several so that I could have one close to hand wherever I was. The door opened and of all the people I might have expected this was not one of them. Lara Raith stepped into my office with all of the grace and loveliness of a forties movie star. She was tall, pale and raven haired with enough curves to loan some out and still have plenty to spare. She was also one of the single most frightening creatures I had ever dealt with. Lara was the defacto ruler of the White Court of vampires. With a little help from a certain wizard, not to be named, she had wrested control of the House of Raith from her father and now used him as a figurehead to rule over the entire White Court.

"Harry," She beamed at me. God she could beam. The last time I'd seen her Lara had been wearing nothing but a blanket and a smile. Her hair had also been burned down close to her scalp because her cousin Madeline and a mercenary called Binder had detonated a concussion grenade enhanced with something very flammable right in front of Lara and me as we hunted for them on an island I call Demon Reach. Lara's hair had grown out some and she'd styled it in a spiky fashion that made her look oh so enticing as she smiled at me. "I'm so glad you're in."

"Hello, Lara," I greeted her. "Won't you come in? Could I offer you some coffee?"

"So kind but no." She shut the door and proceeded to one of the chairs in front of my desk sitting demurely. "I'm here on business."

Great. I knew what had brought her but I wasn't going to let her know that. "What sort of business?"

"Your sort." Her smile faded. "I have documents here that will show I am operating with the knowledge of the White Council so there won't be any foolishness about breaching protocols."

I took the envelope she passed to me and opened the Council's seal. The documents, written on real parchment with a quill, authorized me to assist Lara with an investigation that the Council deemed to be in the interests of peace between the White Court and the wizards. As the local Warden and regional commander I was to make regular reports to the Council and see to it that nothing threatened the treaty between the two parties.

"I see," I said scratching at my ear. "What exactly do you need?"

"You are already aware of the woman killed last night," Lara said in a businesslike tone. She must have had someone watching the morgue or maybe me. "I want you to discover the killer and his method. When you do, I will take it from there."

"The local authorities are already on the case," I was hedging a bit but not much. If Lara had the backing of the wizards I didn't actually have a choice. Murphy wouldn't like this. Murphy really wouldn't like this at all.

"If the mortal authorities are able to capture this person then I will still take it from there." Lara's smile did not reach her eyes.

"And the treaty?" I asked.

"I have no interest in a war at this time, Mr. Dresden."

"I'll do what I can," I assured her. "But there isn't much to work with."

"These may help." She tossed a small packet on my desk. I opened it. Inside were three photos of a dark haired woman and a man in his mid thirties taken by what I assumed was the surveillance camera in the lobby of the hotel. Also in the envelope was a clear plastic bag containing three hairs. Pubic hairs. I raised an eyebrow at her.

"I have my sources," Lara said smugly. "Do this for me, wizard mine, and I shall pay you your usual fee. Perhaps more. I can be most generous."

Most generous. Lara could indeed be that. She could also be deadly as hell if she felt the need.

"Who was the woman?" I asked.

"My cousin Danica." Lara shifted slightly in her chair. "She was not an important member of the Court but she was family."

"Did she have any enemies that you know of?"

"I can't think of any that would have chosen her specifically. As I said. She was not an important member of the Court. Killing her would not have sent any real message to us. It might be that one of the other Houses was trying to get my attention. Somehow I doubt that though." She frowned pensively.

"It seems too direct," I murmured. "Could it have been a test?"

"Test? To see how we would react to Danica's death you mean?"

"No," I said. "To see if whatever it was that killed her would kill her. To see if whatever it was would kill a member of the White Court."

"I see." Lara considered this a moment. When she spoke again her voice was a little harder. "It could have been. I'm afraid though that would point the finger at the Council."

"Like you the Council has no interest in a war at this time." That was very true. Losses to the Red Court had been very high. The White Council had begun to replace the Wardens who had fallen during the war with the Red Court of vampires and its allies but recently we had sacrificed our most experienced battle commander. Donald Morgan had been at the center of a conspiracy to destroy the Council from within. He had been framed for the murder of Aleron LaFortier a senior council member and the subsequent events had nearly set off a civil war among the wizards. Those events had been set in motion by an agent of what I was calling the Black Council named Peabody. Morgan had plugged Peabody full of holes and saved my life just before he died. With all of the fallout that had yet to settle the Council was in no position to fight a fresh war.

"Perhaps not all of the wizards think so," Lara said evenly.

"Perhaps." I shook my head. "I seriously doubt it, Lara. What I observed was like no magic I have ever seen." I briefly described the condition of her cousin's body and what Butters had told me about the nature of the wounds.

"Empty night, Harry," Lara breathed. "What could have done it?"

"I would normally say nothing. But I saw it. If it was magic that killed your cousin it was very different from anything I have ever seen." I pursed my lips. "It might have been black magic. I just don't know enough yet."

"Very well, Dresden." Lara stood and me being the gentleman, so did I. "Discover what you can. Bring the murderer to me. Or tell me where he is. Find him."

"I will, Lara," I promised her. She nodded then turned to leave. "Lara?"

"Yes?" She turned back toward me.

"Tell Thomas I said, hi."

Lara gave me a flicker of a smile. "I will."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3:**

Oh this was just peachy. On the one hand Murphy, S.I. and Chicago P.D. were looking for a suspect in a possible homicide. On the other hand Lara Raith and the White Court were looking to get pay back for the killing of one of their own. And on yet another hand I had the White Council to contend with. If I screwed this up I was in a world of hurt. Underneath it all was one big worry and a big question. The Black Council had been moving to get the White Council involved in as many problems as they could. All the time making other less obvious moves to embroil the whole of the supernatural world in intrigue and even open war among the Faery Courts. They had been playing cat and mouse with me on and off for I don't know how many years now but recently they had stepped up the game. I constantly found myself reacting to what they had set in motion. What I wanted was to get a step ahead of them and force them to react to me. I had to figure out how to take the initiative away from them. But they were always working through others. They exceeded even the White Court in the use of catspaws. Hell, the Black Council had struck at the heart of the White Court a couple years back and it was through no small amount of luck that I hadn't gotten killed in the crossfire along with a lot of my friends and a couple of my enemies. I say enemies but really I had to admit that at the time John Marcone had been among my best allies. I didn't like him but he had gone out of his way to save my life more than once. All that aside I had to wonder what the angle was that they were playing here. I could see no advantage that the Black Council would gain by showing their hand like this. If they had a way to kill a White Court vampire through magical means then why show it? Besides. Why do it the way that Danica had been killed? It was easier and a lot less conspicuous to just put a bullet in her. The White Court was physically the weakest sort of vampire so if you put enough holes in them they would bleed out. Cut their head off and they were just as dead as any mortal. I was missing something.

Once I had brooded over this tangle of thought for an hour or so I collected my keys and the evidence that Lara had left me and headed home. I had to know more about what had killed Danica Raith and the only person I could think of who might know how it had been done was sitting on a wooden shelf in my subbasement lab.

"Bob," I said as I came down the ladder into my work room. "Bob, wake up."

My lab is a crowded little stone walled room with a concrete floor under my basement apartment. In the middle is a largish table covered with a scale model of the city of Chicago. I had invested a lot of time and will into the model. I've heard of Mapquest on the internet but that was nothing compared to what I could do with the miniature city. Around the room were wire shelves bolted to the walls and a small desk that Molly Carpenter used for her apprentice studies. Sunken into the concrete floor at the far end of the room was a pure copper summoning circle. Try to say that three times in a row. It had replaced the earlier incarnation when I had gotten enough money to actually purchase that much copper. Sitting atop a lone wooden shelf crowded with candles and old romance novels was the dried, bleached human skull in which resided the spirit of intellect that I had named Bob. He had served wizards throughout the last several centuries and I knew I was lucky to have him. Butters and Murphy relied on their computers for a lot of the information they used on a daily basis. I relied on Bob for the same purpose.

"Ah, Harry," Bob said as his eye lights flickered like small candle flames. "What is it that you're up to today?"

"I have problems," I said getting out a fresh pad and several pencils.

"I know. More than I can count on one hand," Bob yawned. "Well more than I could count if I had hands. Is it that cute Warden Captain of yours? Is she trying to get back together with you? You know make up sex is always the best. It's like the first time only you already know what turns each other on."

For a non-corporeal being Bob had an unrelenting sex drive. I threw a pencil at him out of sheer habit.

"Enough of that. Anastasia and I have settled the matter and that's the way it is," I said. Then I proceeded to describe the events of the morning and all that had transpired between me and Lara Raith.

"You say that this Danica's cells were ruptured?" Bob mused. "Seems an awfully expensive way to go about killing someone. Magically speaking that is."

"I agree. What could have done that?" I asked.

"Your friend Butters suggested a hard vacuum," Bob shifted on his shelf. "Not likely to find that in a hotel room though. To burst like that they would either have to expand from a lack of exterior pressure or an increase in internal pressure."

"I figured out that much on my own, Bob," I said doodling down a couple notes. "How would you increase the amount of pressure inside a human cell?"

"Physical attacks of that nature are a little beyond me, Harry," Bob said. "I've never heard of a spell or potion that could do such a thing. You're sure you felt magic in the corpse?"

"It was only a trace but I'm sure," I regarded Bob. He was right. Physical attacks were outside his usual bounds. "You would have to either add more of what is already in a cell or cause what's in it to expand to the point where it burst the cell wall."

"And what is in a cell?" Bob asked following my train of thought.

"Fluids of some kind," I said sketching a diagram of a cell that I remembered from high school biology.

"Fluids can freeze. Water expands when it freezes," Bob turned to face me a little more directly.

"She didn't freeze to death, Bob," I was getting an inkling of where Bob seemed to be going and I didn't like what I was starting to think either. I did have to admit though that the blotchy scars on Danica looked a lot like pictures I'd seen of frost bite. "Are you hinting that it could be someone from Winter?"

"Could be. There are more than a few very powerful beings in Faery that could kill in that manner. I don't know why they would bother but they could do it I suppose," Bob said giving me the impression that he was shrugging.

"The vampires did insult the Fae when they and their allies crossed into the Unseelie domains," I shook my head. "That was the Red court though. So we have a minor White Court vampire that gets lured into a hotel room with a Winter Court assassin? Instead of just cutting off her head or something he freezes her cells until she's dead. Why?"

"Nothing says that he froze her cells all at one time," Bob mused. "Torture?"

"Having your cells disrupted would be incredibly painful I think," I noted this down too. "But the White Court heal wounds of that sort pretty quickly. And from what Butters could tell Danica had had a lot of sex recently."

"Did she now?" Bob leered. "Do tell, Harry."

"Bob, she's dead. Have some respect," I scowled up at the skull. "Okay, so maybe they do the deed then he starts in with the torture. No one reported her screaming or anything. I suppose he could have cast a spell to keep her quiet or maybe sound proof the room. There might be evidence there. If nothing else the room might be able to tell me what didn't happen to her."

"One other thing occurs to me, boss," Bob said as I stood up. I looked at him. "It's only the absence of a second body that makes it less likely."

"What's that?" I asked.

"Death curse, Harry," Bob said. "A death curse would have been powerful enough to do that much damage even if cast by a practitioner of limited ability."

"His body didn't just disappear, Bob," I said. "Someone would have had to come in and remove the guy."

"Which would mean more than one person was involved in last nights skulduggery," the skull said with what I can only describe as a troubled frown. How he did it I can't say. Bob has had a few centuries to practice though.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"Murphy." Karrin's voice came over the line with a crackle of static. Damn phones.

"Hi, Karrin, it's Dresden. I might have come up with a couple of things for you on that case from this morning," I told her.

"Like who killed her?" Murphy asked.

"No. Sorry," I said. I spent a few minutes telling her what I'd learned and against my better judgment I told her about Lara Raith and the Council's involvement in my investigation.

"Damn it, Harry!" Murphy was pissed. "How the hell am I supposed to let you do that?"

"I know, Murph. I don't like it either," I said trying to convince her. "The Council wants me to cooperate with Lara. They want me to report to them. But, there is nothing in their instructions that says I have to do anything that would interfere with your investigation. And consider this. Since I'll be getting paid by Lara you and S.I. won't be footing the bill for my services if you choose to make use of my knowledge of all things magic."

Murphy chewed that over for a minute before she spoke. I could almost hear her teeth grinding. "So what do you think killed this Danica?"

"I don't know," I sighed. "I can't figure it out. I'd like to see the crime scene. It might help to narrow things down a bit. Could that be arranged?"

"Probably." Murphy sounded reluctant. "I just don't want you finding this guy and then he winds up dead under mysterious circumstances. I'd have I.A. down on me so bad I'd lose my job this time, Harry. I've got no more markers to call in. I've used up all my favors. You have to be on the up and up with this one."

"I don't want you getting in trouble for me, Murph. You know that's the last thing I want." If Murphy got shafted over this I would never forgive myself. She was far more than just another cop. Karrin was the best friend I've had for years. "I'll do everything I can to keep it from coming to that."

"What do you think Lara meant by her 'taking it from there' if we brought this guy in?" Murphy asked.

"I figure she'll get someone on the inside to kill him," I replied. "She's got contacts everywhere. It wouldn't be beyond her to have someone in the jail knock him off right under the noses of the cops. Even if you put him in solitary confinement she'll get him."

"Yeah. I figured," Murphy grumbled. "I can't let that happen either."

"If he really did kill a White Court vampire with magic like you think, it might be the best thing for everyone involved if he caught a really bad case of the deads."

"Not for him. While a prisoner is in my custody, Harry, I have a responsibility to make sure he is safe and healthy until he's in someone else's custody." Murphy's tone was hard enough to cut diamonds. "Not only that, Harry, but it's my duty to warn his guards that someone is out to kill him. I can't just set this guy up to be killed. Even if he's a murderer there's due process."

"Well, Murph," I said, "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

Two hours later I was walking into the lobby of the Lakeview Hotel. It was four stories of not quite elegant rooms at the edge of a not quite nice part of town and inevitably it had no view of the lake. Murphy met me at the door and we walked down the hallway to where a strip of yellow and black police line tape was stuck to a door frame. The surrounding rooms were empty. Karrin removed the tape and inserted one of those plastic card keys into the lock while I stood across the hall. Electronic stuff has a tendency to go poof when I get too close. That's why I drive a thirty year old car and have no lights or electrical appliances in my apartment.

The room was relatively nice in a sterile way. The bed sheets had been removed for the forensics team to go over but the bed was large and in good shape. All traces of the former occupants of the room were gone. It made the whole place feel very empty. This was not someone's home but hotel rooms usually retained the feel of people. This was just empty. I stood in the doorway and scanned the room. My gaze ran over the walls, the furniture, the carpet and the little nook where the sink and bathroom door were. Nothing. I didn't want to but I closed my eyes and called up my Sight. Some people call it the third eye. Others call it ESP. The Sight is a tool that wizards can tap into when they need to see more than there eyes are capable of. The draw back to using your Sight is that whatever you see with it is imprinted on your mind. Forever. It never fades. Every time you recall it is as clear as it was the first time you experienced it. There are good things I've seen with my sight that would make an angel weep in joy. But there are things that would cause a demon to run screaming in fear. I've seen a lot with my sight and it worries me that I might one day see too much. I opened my eyes and the room sprang into wild swirls in front of me. I staggered trying to keep my balance. Murphy reached out and braced me up.

"Harry?" she said gripping my arm. "What's wrong?"

"Just a minute, Murph," I said finding the wall with my hand. "Give me a minute."

The room was still swirling as though it had been kicked down a hill inside of a barrel. Nothing made sense for a minute and then I realized the whole place had been disrupted on a psychic level. I stared hard finally seeing a pattern emerge. Life. I don't know how to describe it better than that. Everything I looked at seemed to be going through birth to age to death and back again. All of the wood in the room was visible as phantom tree limbs that sprouted leaves and dropped them and withered and then were reborn. The plastics did some amazing things that I still can't figure out. All I know is that I saw dinosaurs and then goo and then plastic. The rest was just weird. The swirling of the room seemed to be centered on the bed. That must have been where the event was triggered. I forced my eyes shut. In a moment I was able to breath normally again.

"What happened, Harry?" Murphy was looking up at me in concern.

"Something big."

"Yeah, I got that much. Can you be a little more specific?"

"Not really," I said rubbing my temples. "It doesn't make sense. I've never experienced anything like that before."

"Like what?" Murphy asked staring around the room. I tried to explain to her what I'd just seen. She said, "Weird. What would cause that?"

"Murphy, I haven't seen this sort of thing before!" I didn't mean to snap at her but, damn it! Wizards aren't used to not understanding what was happening. People have looked to us for guidance ever since there have been people. Murphy was standing back giving me a gimlet stare. "Sorry, Karrin. I just feel a little useless right now."

"Join the crowd, Dresden," she said. "I've been at an impasse since I rolled out this morning. We've made zero headway on the guy that was with Danica. I can't even put her real name in the report unless we can find a source for it that I can document. And now I'm standing here with a wizard on the rag."

I smiled at her and suddenly we were giggling like school kids who had just heard a fart joke.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

None of this made any sense. That's what was running through my brain while I drove back to my place. Someone had killed Danica Raith. I had no idea how it had been done except that magic had been involved. I was now convinced of that. The method of attack suggested a lot of power and skill had been employed. The damage to her cells suggested that it could have been done by freezing them. If so that would point toward a wizard or some agent of the Winter Court. Ice magic is not the first thing most wizards will use. In fact since it involved water I wasn't sure that any wizard could employ it. Mortal magic is based in fire, earth and air. Water grounds magic. Try casting a spell in even a moderate down pour and you have to throw one hell of a lot of will into it. Making a person's cells freeze would be complicated enough to require ritual work and I hadn't sensed any evidence of that sort of thing. Bob had suggested that a death curse would harness enough power to do what had been done but there was no evidence of a second corpse and there was no evidence that anyone but Danica and the mystery man had been in the room. The night clerk had been absolutely sure that nobody had passed his desk with a dead body.

I was getting nowhere fast. Murphy was pretty much in the same boat. Forensics had turned up fingerprints that matched Danica but there were so many prints in the room that they couldn't be sure if any of them belonged to the mystery man. Finding him was the real key. With the hairs that Lara had given me I stood a good chance of tracking the guy down. But something told me that I might regret finding him. If he really was a practitioner those hairs could have been planted with the intent to mislead or perhaps entrap someone like me. You can do a lot of things with hair besides find someone. I knew from personal experience what some of the wickeder things were.

When I got home I took the envelope from the Beetle's glove box and headed for my door. Mister, my big gray tomcat shot from the shadows and barreled into my legs in his usual body block greeting. He weighs the next best thing to thirty pounds and if you aren't ready for it Mister can lay you out like a sack of meal. I reached down and petted him while he stropped himself back and forth across my shins purring like an outboard motor. He joined me as I disarmed the wards around my door and shoved it open. I muttered the candles to life and Mouse thumped his tail on the kitchen floor as I entered to check that water was out for the two of them. As I straightened, Mouse went and picked up his lead. I set the envelope down on the counter and clipped the lead to Mouse's collar. We went out to the sandy spot in the back yard that had been designated Mouse's business area. While he was doing business I reflected that I needed to clean the spot up a bit before National Geographic came by in search of the dinosaur that was leaving piles everywhere. I've seen bear droppings at the zoo and let me just say they've got nothing on Mouse. I mean there are clydesdales that make smaller piles. Okay. Enough of the gross doggy stuff.

Once down in my lab I got to work on the hairs. First I laid out a map of the greater Chicago area on Molly's desk. I then selected the longest hair and drew it out of the plastic bag with tweezers. At that instant I remembered from what part of the body the hairs had come and I grimaced. Nothing I could do about it though so I picked up a crystal on the end of a leather thong and stepped inside my summoning circle with the crystal in one hand and the hair in the other. With a gentle force of will I closed the circle and felt the ambient magic pressure drop away. I concentrated on a tracking spell that I'd developed years ago and felt it click into place like the tumblers of a combination lock. When the spell was ready I broke the circle and held the crystal over the map. For a moment it swayed back and forth on first a north/south axis then east/west. It spun in circles and finally settled over a spot on the map. I leaned closer to read where I should go. The morgue. What the hell? Had Lara thought Danica's hairs would help? I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and repeated the spell with the remaining hairs. Each time the crystal stopped over the morgue. Damn! A dead end. No pun intended.

I started to think about what I actually knew about the case. A woman was dead. I know she was a vampire but still. I have a streak of chivalry a mile wide and twice as deep. It's a character flaw that has caused me more trouble than I care to recall. Murphy teases me about it but then if she didn't have that to tease me about she'd find something else. I'd seen Danica's body and deep down I knew that it was wrong. No person should end up like she had. So, a woman was dead under unusual circumstances. She had last been seen in the company of a man that could not be found. No. Scratch that. A man that had not yet been found. Lara had said Danica was a minor figure of the White Court. White Court vampires generally operated through layers of agents. They manipulated people into doing what they wanted. Lara had come to me to find the killer. What was wrong with this picture? Lara was acting directly! That was not at all like her. She normally would put out feelers. She might have someone come to me and arrange for an investigation without me ever discovering that Danica was a vampire. And she had gone to the White Council to be sure there would be no difficulties in my cooperation with her. Again she was acting directly. Conclusion? There was more to Danica Raith than I had been told. It might even be that Lara had had her killed. If so the man in question may already be known to her. That was likely in fact. Lara was doing something behind a screen. If she was acting directly there was something under that. My father had been a stage magician. I had only been six when he'd died but dad had shown me a few tricks in our short time together. The one thing that was key in virtually all of them was that you had to have the audience focussed on one hand while you did the trick with the other. Lara was doing just that. And as dangerous of a game as Lara usually played it could get me killed.

I needed to know what was going on in the White Court but my contact there was nearly out of reach. Justine was my half brother Thomas' girlfriend and was well placed to feed information to me on the sly. But after an ancient American Indian nightmare called a Naagloshii had finished torturing Thomas a few months ago I'd hardly talked to either of them. Thomas had gone nearly mad and his resolve to stop feeding indiscriminately had vanished. I couldn't just call Justine up out of the blue and have a nice friendly chat with her. That would look suspicious at any time. Now it would be put under a microscope and most likely Justine would disappear. But I needed more information. At that point it occurred to me that outside of the Raith mansion I had seen Justine only once in the past few years. That had been at Club Zero the night I had first met the Naagloshii. The night it had killed a friend of mine. I pushed those dark thoughts aside and brooded over the idea that was percolating in my head. I knew Justine kept the books on most of the legitimate businesses the House of Raith operated and surely she would do her rounds this week like always. If I could somehow contact her without the vampires being aware of it then I might just get the skinny on what was going on behind the scenes that Lara didn't want me to know about.

"Bob, wake up," I said with a fresh sense of purpose. "We've got a potion to make."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

I'd taken a cab to Club Zero's neighborhood. About half a block over and one up I stood out of the way and waited for Justine to pass. I figured she would come this way since it was the most direct rout to the club. I wasn't sure if this would be one of the nights that the girl would be checking the books but I was low on ways to contact her. If this didn't pan out I'd have to think of something else. My feet were getting sore and my knees were stiffening when about two hours later finally I saw her go past in a cab. I turned toward the club entrance and when I was about fifty feet from it I pulled out the sports bottle and drank the potion. My vision grayed out pretty fast and for a moment all I wanted to do was find a nice out of the way spot to sit and admire the scenery. I focussed my attention on walking to the door and the moment passed. Most potions have a very short duration and I didn't want to waste this one. If it gave out on me before I had finished talking to Justine we might both end up dead.

Club Zero is one of those places you read about in storybooks. At least it would be if the storybook were sold in one of those stores with a sign that included the letters XXX. It's all light and smoke and good times. All of the light was red or flashes of pale blue. All of the smoke was unhealthy. All of the good times involved... Ahumm. Never mind. The club has a certain image it tries to maintain. I hadn't quite figured out what that image was but it involved a lot of leather and vinyl clothing. Sometimes it involved no clothing at all. I was wearing my big leather duster, the same as last time I had visited, so I probably wouldn't stand out. I slipped in behind a group of folks that were clearly complying with the club's image. We passed through the first door which was a level below the street at the bottom of a flight of concrete stairs. The doormen at the end of the darkened hallway smiled and wished us all a good visit and didn't look at me twice. Maybe not even once.

I had felt the music long before I could actually hear it and once inside the club I could feel it rumbling through my chest cavity. I thought my ears would go numb. The club hadn't changed at all since my last visit but I wasn't sure where Justine would be. I doubted she would do paperwork on one of the metal framed platforms in all of this smoke and noise. But luckily I caught sight of her at a bar off to one side speaking with a tall, well muscled man of indeterminate age tending bar. She was holding a clipboard but that was the most businesslike thing about her. Justine isn't tall for a woman but tonight she was wearing a pair of heals that added at least four inches to her legs which were on display below the hem of a black leather skirt split up to her hip. A white silk blouse gave her something of the naughty librarian look.

I made my way through the bumping, sweating crowd toward the bar with the intent to wait for her conversation to finish. I was saved this bother when Justine turned with a wave to the bartender and headed my way. She nearly bumped into me as she passed and I had to fight up stream in her wake before I could touch her elbow. Such an action in Club Zero must be so out of the ordinary that she looked back immediately. I would guess that most women there are touched in other places. Probably most of the men too. Justine's face went from gray to technicolor for just an instant as she looked up at me.

"I'm not in the mood for company, sir," Justine said with her dazzling smile.

"Justine," I said. "It's me. Harry."

"Sir," she said. "While I am an employee I am not a mixer. I have work to finish. I'm sure you'll be able to find more pleasant company with one of the other girls."

I cursed the potion for a moment but then said with a bit of will. "Justine, look at me."

Her eyes came up with an annoyed flare. A bit more color formed and her expression softened. She nearly ruined my plan when she stepped toward me. I held up a hand to stop her.

"I haven't got much time," I told her. She frowned, not understanding. "I'm using a potion so that I won't be recognized. Is there somewhere we can talk?"

"Ah. This way." Justine is as pretty a girl as you're ever likely to come across. She also happens to have quite the brain and she knew how to put it to use.

"Lara wouldn't have minded if you wanted to speak with me," she said as we walked towards a door in the back of the club. We entered into a small, dimly lit room with a desk and filing cabinets. Justine closed the door and switched on the overhead lights then locked the door.

"I think she would mind," I told her. "I think there's more going on than what she told me. Who was Danica? Did Lara have any reason to kill her?"

"Danica was just one of the lower ranking members of the Court," Justine said. "Lara could have gotten rid of her easily enough without resorting to killing her."

"How well did Lara know Danica?" I asked.

"I'm not sure, Harry," Justine said. "But they had spent a good bit of time together over the past two months. Lara had her working on something."

"Working on something?"

"Some special project. Lara never told me anything about it." Justine frowned in thought. "I know Danica had been traveling quite a bit. I had to process all of the tickets for her."

"What kind of tickets?"

"Airlines," Justine said. "Danica was flying all over the place. West coast, east coast, Italy, Japan, Hawaii, England and a bunch of other places. I think Lara was trying to gather information but I don't know about what."

"Sounds like Danica was more than an unimportant member of the court," I mused. "Did you see anything unusual in the past week or so? Did Danica do anything different? Was Lara acting funny? Anything?"

"I'm sorry, Harry but..." she trailed off.

"But?"

"Danica did order a set of tickets that she didn't use," Justine said thinking. "About two weeks ago. They were for a flight from Anchorage, Alaska to Chicago."

"But Danica never used them?"

"No. Someone else did."

"And you don't know who it was."

"No. I did set up a hotel room though." She looked at me intently. "Is it important?"

"Maybe," I was trying to keep my heart rate under control. If I got excited now my potion would burn up before I could get to the door. "Which hotel?"

"The Alistair." Justine looked at me closely. "I think you need to hurry, Harry. You're getting... I'm not sure but I think your potion is wearing off."

"Do you remember the room number?" I had to have this information but I wasn't going to get either of us killed. I wanted to leave. Now. But I waited for Justine's answer.

"Room 819. Harry, go now." Her voice was urgent as she snapped the lock open and switched out the lights. I left without even a backward glance. I brushed through the crowd trying to avoid eye contact while still blending in with all the stuff anyone at Club Zero would expect to see. I made it past the doormen just as the potion was giving out. They had been more or less in color as I swept through the curtain in the hall. Once on the street I breathed in heavily. I wanted to fill my lungs with as much clear air as I could and get my heart rate under control. I felt the last vestiges of the potion in my veins reform the magic shroud as I slipped down an alley. I wasn't sure if anyone would have been watching for me but I'm easy to pick out of a crowd. Not too many people are as tall as I am and few of them wear long, black, leather dusters.

I'd risked a lot but I had gotten what I'd gone to the club for. I finally had a line on what Danica Raith had been up to and I was willing to bet that room 819 was where I would find the mystery man.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Murphy climbed out of her car in the parking garage of the Alistair Hotel. It was a fair sized establishment three blocks from the airport and it was posh. I'd never been inside but I had seen the brochure somewhere. Expensive looking carpets, original oils on the walls, Greek statuary in the garden. No wonder the Raith's liked the place. Even the garage was well maintained. The concrete structure was open like all parking garages and the mid September night was chill with the wind coming off the lake. But the lines marking out the spaces were freshly painted and clean fixtures provided the light. I'd had to work hard to locate a shadow that was deep enough to at least partially conceal me.

"So tell me what was so important that you didn't want to talk about it over the phone," Murphy said as I came up to her. "And why the hell did you have the desk sergeant deliver that note instead of calling me?"

"Hi, Murph, it's great to see you again," I smiled at her. She gave me a level, un-amused glare. It's amazing how she can do that from a foot below my eye line. "I found a clue."

"What clue?" she asked. Her expression softened.

"There," I pointed to the hotel across the street. "I didn't want to tell you over the phone because I can't be sure that Lara doesn't have your line bugged."

Murphy snorted at that. But when I didn't react she raised her eyebrows. "You really mean that."

"Yeah. She could do it and the only person who could have told me about this could get herself killed if it got back to Lara."

"You have my complete attention," Murphy said.

I took a few minutes to explain what I had learned and what I suspected.

"So you think that the mystery man is still at the hotel?" Murphy asked when I finished.

"No. I don't think so. I doubt he's that stupid," I told her. Since leaving the club I'd had some time to consider things. "If he really is responsible for Danica Raith's death he'd be a fool to continue to stay there. And I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't have gone back there after his evening with Danica. It's more likely that he cut and ran."

"Okay, Dresden," Murphy had put on her detective cap now. "I'd buy that. Why would they go down to the Lakeview Hotel if he had this place though? I can see her not wanting to have him knowing where she lived. But he had to know that she already knew where he was staying."

"I don't know why they picked the Lakeview. Might have just been close to where they had been partying. There are some good clubs down that way. Some that aren't so legal," I said. "Might be that she didn't want Lara to know that she'd gotten together with him. Or maybe she had instructions from Lara."

"Why do you think this person and the mystery man are one and the same?"

"I'm not sure that they are," I confessed. "But it seems a good place to start. It's the first thing that even remotely could pass for his trail. Do you think you could find out if 819 is still occupied without Lara finding out?"

"Maybe. I'd like to get a look inside the room too," Murphy mused as she stared at the lobby entrance. "You want to come?"

"I'd like to," I told her. "But I'm a little conspicuous. I don't think it would be such a great idea for the two of us to be seen going into the hotel together. I don't think it would be good for me even to go alone."

"Because of this person who might get killed if Lara finds out you've been hunting around?" Murphy asked.

"That and I don't want her to get spooked. Lara's operating from behind a smoke screen right now," I said. "If she thinks I've seen through it she might come gunning for me just to keep me from learning the real reason she hired me."

"Okay, Harry," Murphy said as if she'd made a decision. "I'll get some of the guys from S.I. to start canvassing the hotels. I'll make sure they start with some other place so it won't look like this is our target."

"What if they deny this guy ever was a guest?" I asked.

She gave me a wry smirk and answered in a really bad Hogan's Heros accent. "Ve haf vays of making zem talk."

I left Murphy to do her cop thing and headed back home. It was starting to get late and the after effects of the potion were making me groggy. All I wanted was to hit the sack and get a fresh start first thing in the morning. Mister greeted me with the body block of greeting as I shoved the door open. He quickly disappeared into the night. I suspected he would be raiding local villages and running off with virgins so I locked up. Mouse greeted me with a yawn and after I'd unlocked the door again and taken him out for a short walk we both settled in. I just wanted to have a Coke before I went to bed and think for a bit about the case.

I woke to the sound of the phone in my ear. Again. I pushed Mouse's head off my feet and he curled tighter into a ball looking a lot like a furry beanbag chair. The phone rang again as I drank a swallow of my now flat Coke, the taste of which mixed with that oh so lovely morning breath flavor, and I shuffled across the room to answer it.

"Dresden," I grumbled into the handset. I think I mentioned that I'm not at my best first thing after waking.

"H...Ha...rry?" It was a squeaky little voice that I thought I recognized but couldn't put my finger on it.

"Yeah. This is Harry Dresden." I said coming more to myself. "Who's this?"

"Harry, it's me. Butters." He sounded shaky or excited. Maybe both.

"What's going on, Butters?" I asked getting my brain more into gear.

"Harry, I've got a problem."

Oh shit.

"One of the bodies..."

"Butters? Damn it get out of there!" All my sleep addled brain could think of were the zombies we'd run away from a few Halloweens ago. They'd been animated by a necromancer. One of the heirs of Kemmler. The guy had been trying to make himself into a minor god. Instead he'd wound up just as dead as one of his goons.

"No, Harry." Butters' voice was still shaky but a little stronger. "It's not like the last time. This one's still dead. I think."

"Still dead? You THINK it's STILL dead? Butters, steer clear of it till I get there." I was already getting my things together. I had a black medical bag with some standard stuff that could help me do a lot of different things. Chalk, fine sand and dry erase markers to make circles with. Table salt, a box of iron filings and a bunch of other stuff. "Keep it locked in a room and stay away from it."

"Okay, Harry." Butters didn't sound so shaky now that he knew I was on the way but I had seen him break under the threat of a zombie stampede. I pulled on my duster, picked my staff out of the umbrella stand by the door and grabbed Mouse's leash. The Fu dog met me at the door.

It didn't take us long to get to the morgue. The Beetle ran pretty well that night. That was a rarity but since it was fresh from the shop it didn't surprise me too much. My mechanic, Mike, is the best. He has never asked me how things like claw marks or acid burns ended up on the car. Normally he scratches his head and starts working. Lately I'd noticed him stocking old parts in the small fenced lot behind his garage. I wasn't sure but I thought most of them had been ear marked for me. What a guy.

When I came through the doors of the morgue Butters was waiting on me. He signed me in at the desk and we went through the security door back to his work room.

"This may disturb you, Harry," Butters said getting out his key. "I've never seen anything like it."

Twice in one day? Butters had been a medical examiner for years and I'm sure he had handled more dead bodies than most morticians. I'm not particularly good with dead bodies. Most people aren't. They just don't seem natural. The sad fact is though that eventually we all end up that way. Even us wizards. Sure, there are members of the White Council that have been around for more than two hundred years but they still age and they still die. That being said, what greeted me on the examining table in Butters' lab was stomach turning. Butters had already begun the autopsy and the chest cavity was open. There were things showing that just weren't meant to be seen. Worse yet was that there were parts in plastic bags on another table that clearly belonged to the corpse. I recognized an arm and a leg and there were some things that I would have needed a copy of Gray's Anatomy to figure out. All _that_ being said I couldn't see what was so unusual about it. I gave Butters a look and felt Mouse's leash go taught. I looked down at the big dog. He had taken all the slack out of the line and had a very curious expression on his doggy face. With his ears perked forward and his head cocked to one side it was clear that he was interested in the body on the table. I looked back to Butters.

"He came in this afternoon. They shuffled him off on me," Butters said looking at the corpse. "He was hit by the L. The report says he just stepped off the platform right into it."

"What's so unusual about that?" I asked. I knew it wasn't every day somebody committed suicide but Butters must have seen a lot of these. For answer Butters took a big envelope from his desk. He slid several X-ray prints out and handed them to me. I dropped Mouse's lead and holding the X-rays up to the light, shuffled through them.

"The first ones were taken when he was brought in," Butters said. "The other three are ones I did before I got started."

It took me a minute to see what he was getting at. The images of the large bone in the leg that was still attached were different. The first prints showed several fractures. In the later ones those fractures were all but gone. I looked at the corpse and then back to Butters.

"This is sort of like what you described happening to me," I said. Butters had been trying to figure out why wizards live so long compared to other mortals. He wasn't a doctor but as a medical examiner he had most of the training. I had asked him to patch me up on more than one occasion and he had once saved the life of Anastasia Luccio when a necromancer called Corpse Taker had switched a mortally wounded body for her perfectly healthy one. Seconds later I had summarily executed Corpse Taker by putting a .44 caliber round through Anastasia's former head. Thanks to Butters the mortal wound to Anastasia's new body turned out to be not so mortal.

"If he really were dead that shouldn't be happening," Butters stated the obvious. "Even in the case of a wizard you don't heal a broken bone in a matter of hours."

"No. We pretty much take as long as the next guy," I stuffed the prints back into the envelope and handed it back to Butters. "Anything else going on with him?"

"All of his minor cuts and bruises are gone. Even a really nasty one on the severed leg healed." Butters indicated the leg in its plastic bag.

"All the kings horses and all the kings men," I mumbled getting closer to the mess on the table. As I watched, the big incision on the chest twitched and closed a fraction of an inch. Blood was pooling near the open wounds. Without a heartbeat blood doesn't flow through a body. It settles to the lowest point like any fluid would. "Butters, is there a place you can lock this up where it would have a difficult time getting out?"

"The storage lockers only open from the outside and they're made from stainless steel. Would that do?" We didn't have a lot of options here. I couldn't go carting this thing around in the Beetle. The cops tend to frown on things like that. So we slid the body off the gurney onto one of the empty drawers. Butters closed it up with its bags of spare parts.

"What do you think is going on?" Butters asked after an uneasy moment of silence.

"I'm not sure, Waldo," I told him. "It's no zombie. They don't need to heal like that. They just keep going until they fall apart."

"Bodies aren't supposed to heal if they're dead, Harry."

"Which begs the question," I muttered. "Is he dead?"

"Until a while ago I would have said he was." Butters shook his head. "How can this happen? It's just not possible."

"I'd like to leave Mouse here with you. Can that be done?"

"Sure. I guess. I don't think anyone will be coming in this time of night. Why?" Butters looked down at the big dog who was still gazing at the closed storage unit.

"He doesn't seem worried about it," I told Butters. "He seems curious. If it were dark magic or something dangerous I would say drag it to the parking lot and burn it. Did the guy have any I.D. on him?"

"Nothing. He didn't have any finger prints on file with the police. A dental records search is going to be done but they're back logged and we won't start one for another day or so."

"Don't let this one go, Butters." I clapped him on the shoulder. "Call Murphy and tell her about it. Tell her what you told me and that I'm going to look into it. I'll get back in touch with you as soon as I can."

"Okay..." Butters didn't sound too sure but I knew he'd do his best to keep things quiet. I gave Mouse a pat on the head as I went to the door and he gave me a look that said he was on the case and wouldn't let anything happen. Butters was in good hands. So to speak.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

"Great," I said to myself. "Another mystery. Just what I need right now."

I drove the Beetle back toward my place through the early morning streets knowing that I was too awake to even try to get more sleep. I was briefly tempted to call Murphy and see if she had made any progress with the canvassing job we had talked about but I was sure she would be asleep and I didn't want to wake her. What could I do that wasn't a complete waste of time? As much as I hated to admit it I couldn't do anything until I heard back from Karrin. I decided therefore to talk to Bob about the body in Butters' storage locker. Then I got a funny feeling. My instincts twigged to something. The feeling you are being watched. It's like having an itch on the back of your neck. My instincts have saved me a number of times and not too long ago nearly caused me to wreck my car when I caught sight of something while using my Sight to scope out the threat. I cringed when memories of the Naagloshii danced in my head as I checked the mirrors to see if I could pick anything out of the city night. I knew the likely hood was slim. It's pretty easy to tail someone at night when all of the cars on the road just look like the headlights of all the other cars.

At the next intersection I took a random right turn. Three cars followed me. That was more like it. Unfortunately I soon lost track of them among the other traffic on the street. I sped up a bit looking for a well lighted parking lot. About five minutes later I came up on a small strip mall with an all night laundry and a liquor store. I pulled into a space in front of one of the stores that was shut up for the night. Two cars had followed me into the lot. One was a big green sedan and the other was a gray Land Rover. The sedan slowed down and did a U turn to head back out but the Land Rover parked down near the Liquor store. Perfect.

I tucked my .44 into my pocket and checked to be sure that my blasting rod was in place then shook out my shield bracelet. The tiny silver talismans shaped like Medieval kite shields jingled against each other reassuringly. The Land Rover remained where it was and no one had gotten out. Damn. I hate this sort of thing. I got out of the Beetle and walked not too casually toward the liquor store. I was looking at the Land Rover like I was admiring its paint job or something. I could vaguely see two people in the front seats but I couldn't tell if there was anyone in the back. Two to one odds are a lot better than I usually face. The thing that was bothering me though was whether or not they were spell slingers. I'd faced odds like that before and didn't enjoy it. When I was about five yards from the vehicle the driver's door opened and a tall, slim man in his forties stepped out. He had a cell phone to his ear and didn't even glance at me.

"Yeah. I'll get it if they've got it." He was talking to somebody or wanted me to think he was.

I looked a little closer at him as I came up to the liquor store's door. He was maybe six one. About two-hundred pounds with dark hair and light skin. Without giving myself away that was all I could get before I opened the door. He was practically on my heals and nodded his thanks to me as I shoved the door wide for him as I passed through. I took a quick look around and headed to the back of the store where the rum was. Rum is sometimes useful in my trade. I've needed it to bribe a few spirits before. I tend to go with the not insanely expensive rums for that but I also stay away from the cheap stuff. Spirits can tell the difference and I prefer to not piss them off if I can avoid it.

Once I had found the display I wanted I picked up a small bottle and turned it to the light. I don't know what I was supposed to be looking for in the rum but I'd seen someone do that. I used my act to get a better look at the guy from the Land Rover. He was near the wines with his back to me but I noticed that his eyes had strayed up to the convex mirror mounted in the corner for security reasons. He was checking me out. Maybe I was his type but I tend to listen to my hunches about people. This was not a look that said, "Ooo! Sweet!" Or anything like it. Besides, as far as I could tell his eyes were light blue or gray. Crap. I bent over and changed out bottles with a different brand. With the new bottle I went through the routine of holding it up to the light again but this time I was looking for the exit. I found it over in the corner near a sign that said employees only. Above the door was a nice red and white placard that read, "Fire Exit". Perfect. I smiled as though I were satisfied with my find and walked over to another display near the exit pretending interest. From where I was standing the person in the Land Rover was blocked by a big display of wine bottles. Gray Eyes was moving to a new vantage point and had his back to me for the moment. I summoned up my will, edged forward and breathing out, "Ventos Servitas." I sent a light force of will at the door. The narrow column of air was just enough to push the emergency handle and open the door without disturbing any of the displays. Instantly the alarm went off. I ducked down quickly to not be seen by either the clerk or Gray Eyes. The clerk behind the counter came running with a baseball bat and Gray Eyes was right behind him.

"Did you see which way he went?" The clerk demanded. Gray Eyes was too busy running down the alley to reply. When the clerk came back in I stood up and gave him a puzzled look.

"What happened?" I asked as he shut the door.

"I thought..." He trailed off. His eyes snapped to the door with his own puzzled look and then back to me. "Nothing. It must have been the wind or something."

I think he didn't want to insult such a distinguished looking customer as I. Or maybe he was thinking that it wasn't worth explaining to someone so scruffy and disheveled. Either way, he just went back to the counter and picked up the pro wrestling magazine he'd been reading. It took a few minutes before I saw the Land Rover's lights come on. They pulled out of the space and drove on down the parking lot to the exit. Now I was in a pickle. If it were me and I was tailing a guy that had seemingly disappeared but had left his car behind, what would I do? I wouldn't just go home. No. I'd set myself up somewhere that would let me see when the guy went back to his car.

Being a detective and a wizard gives me something of an edge on folks who are neither. If my deductions were right, I was dealing with White Court vampires here. They are super human but they aren't Superman. Though they can nearly run faster than a speeding bullet and can nearly jump a tall building in a single bound, they can't see through walls. And they can't see through a veil. Veils aren't my strong point. Molly Carpenter, my apprentice, has a natural gift for them but not me. I'm good at the blow your socks off (literally) sort of magic but veils are subtle. They take focus and a light touch. The fact that it was night would help. The fact that I would have to walk out the door would hinder. Doors don't just open and my car was close enough that anyone watching it would notice if the liquor store door opened on its own. Fortunately I was saved any more worry when an old man in a janitor's uniform came in shaking off the chill of a September night. Perfect.

The old janitor trundled around the store for a bit. Long enough for me to focus my thoughts and set down the bottle of rum. I'm not a thief. If I was I doubt I'd be living in a basement. When the old man went up to the counter and distracted the clerk I veiled. The two chatted while the clerk rang up the bottle of Mad Dog and slipped it into a bag. With a smile the old man took the bottle and made for the door. I was right behind him. He swung the door open wide and turned back to say good night to the clerk. It was so convenient for me I almost could have kissed him. The door was wide open and I strode through without disturbing a hair on his head. Once into the parking lot I made my way down the sidewalk toward an all night gas station on the corner. Sure enough. I was right. There was the Land Rover parked in the shadows. It was tempting for me to ease up on them and get a better look but vampires have an acute sense of smell to go along with all of their other enhanced senses. I opted for discretion and just got the hell out of Dodge.

Keeping an eye out for the bad guys I found a pay phone and called a cab. I'd have to pick up the Beetle tomorrow but tonight I'd just head home. I had some serious thinking to do.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

On the cab ride to my place I started wondering about who the vampire was. I had a feeling that Lara might have me followed. She MIGHT. Lara was not stupid though. Lara would be sure that anyone following me would be more than discrete. Her people wouldn't worry about me going into a store. They'd be ready to pick up my trail back at my place or at my office. Ergo, Gray Eyes wasn't one of her people. I had to wonder if he was new to Chicago. Obviously Gray Eyes knew who I was but it seemed that he didn't know much about me. Could he have been someone who knew Danica? Maybe. Why follow me though?

I was still trying to puzzle this out when the cab stopped in front of the old rooming house in Mid Town. I got out and after paying the driver I headed for my door. Just as I touched the bottom step I got knocked on my ass. I was already scrambling to my feet and reaching for my blasting rod when I realized that it had been Mister plowing into my shins and not a deadly enemy out for blood. Well, not really. Mister weighs the next best thing to thirty pounds and if you aren't ready for his body block of greeting he can knock you on your ass. Which he had just proved. I'm not sure but I think the cat was laughing at me. He seemed entirely too pleased.

"I'm putting you on a diet," I grumbled as I rose from the steps. The cat smirked at me then began stropping himself back and forth across my shins. He knew I wasn't serious.

Once inside the old apartment I mumbled the candles to life then poked the fire and added a couple of logs. From there I went straight to the icebox. It's a real icebox. I've never owned a refrigerator that lasted more than a week. Wizards are hard on technology and it seems as if I'm harder on it than most. I reached in and pulled out a couple cold cut slices for Mister and a fresh Coke for me. The caffeine would do me good. I resumed my seat in the big, overstuffed chair and sipped at the Coke for a few minutes. My brain had gone on auto pilot. I let my thoughts drift back and forth for a bit until some of the currents began forming patterns.

White Court vampires had been following me. I hadn't noticed until after I'd left the morgue. I had been hired by a White Court vampire. Why would she bother to have me followed? Lara was THE White Court vampire in Chicago. In the rest of the world for that matter. Her resources were vast. Lara was the defacto ruler of the whole Court. She was large and in charge. No one could challenge her authority. The Raiths had ruled the White Court for hundreds of years practically unopposed. It had been her suppression of an attempted coup a few years back that had solidified their control over the Court. Now they were nigh untouchable. Right?

I'm not sure where that had come from but it rattled something in the back of my brain. A memory came strolling out of the corner it had been stowed in. The three major houses of the White court had once come into serious conflict and not too long ago. House Malvora and House Skavis had attempted to end the reign of House Raith by preying on practitioners of magic who were not quite up to the level of White Council wizards. They'd caused the White Council to come under very serious suspicion and done a lot of harm in general. It had been a move supported by the Black Council. In the process it had nearly destroyed the White Court from the inside. If the plan had succeeded Lara and most of the House of Raith would have been killed. It was on account of my personal intervention that the plan had failed. I and my allies, including my brother Thomas, had seen to it that most of the Raiths had made it out of the trap alive. Now I was looking into the death of a vampire of that House. A death that had occurred under mysterious circumstances. I had been followed by White Court vampires. Vampires that were not likely to be Lara's agents.

Oh shit.

And me without my staff.

My eyes snapped open when my door screeched on its hinges. Molly Carpenter with an armful of books and a big paper sack pushed her way in and blinked at me. She's my apprentice and has a talisman that allows her to pass through my wards. She blinked at me again and looked around.

"What are you doing awake at this hour?" Molly asked.

"Contemplating something." I looked over at the old clock on the wall. "Five in the morning? What are you doing here?"

"Prepping for the potions you wanted to teach me today. You said the stuff had to be boiling before the sun comes up."

"We'll do that tomorrow." I stood up and took the stack of books from her. "I'm going to need to call Mike and get him to tow my car."

"The Beetle died again?" Molly asked incredulously. "You just got it out of the shop."

"It didn't die. I was being followed and had to leave it behind," I explained.

"Followed?" Molly shoved the door closed and reset the wards. "You've got a case?"

I spent a few minutes giving her an outline of the whole mess. She was looking troubled by the time I came to the part about the liquor store.

"Well I can give you a ride back there to pick it up if you want," she offered. "Dad loaned me his truck today."

"I don't want you or anyone near that car for a while," I said. "If Mike tows it they will probably follow him. That's when I'm going to pick up their trail."

"You're going to stakeout Mike's garage?" She smiled. "Can I come?"

"I don't think that's such a great idea, Molly. These are White Court vampires. They won't hesitate to kill you." Molly was good at some things but she was just an apprentice. She could handle weapons well. Her parents had seen to that before she ever showed signs of magical talent. Her forte' was in subtle things. Magic that took a light touch. She hadn't built up much experience in the kaboom kind of magic yet. Molly knew that she had limits but all too often she didn't realize what those limits were. I really didn't want her tangling with vampires of any stripe.

"So how are you going to follow them if you don't have a car?" Molly asked in a reasonable tone.

Damn I hate it when she is so smart. I thought it through in a couple of seconds. "I'll just have to get a cab."

"Harry, no offense. You don't have the money it'll take to convince a cabbie to follow anyone," Molly said. "On top of that the cabbie's going to be even less safe than me if the vampires see you. At least I know what they are and I can shoot."

"Molly, I..."

"Harry," she cut me off. "All I'm going to do is drive. I did that when you and Ramirez went into the Raith Mansion. I can handle dad's truck better than you too."

"No you can't. I've seen you parallel park." I was losing this one and I knew it. She was right about a cabbie being in more danger than her too. Damn. "You do what I say. You do it when I say. If I tell you to get out of there you get."

"I promise." She held up her hand trying not to smile. "Scout's honor."

I stoked up the fire and we scrambled some eggs and made coffee. Breakfast was quiet and short. I called Mike just after six when I knew he would be getting into the garage. He agreed to tow the Beetle and said he'd put it on my tab until the end of the month. That would save me from really depleting my checking until after Lara came across with some cash. IF she came across with it. I had a feeling she might not be too pleased with me if things started going the way I was thinking they might. Then again, if she lived through it, Lara would probably be in my debt whether or not she liked the end result.

Molly and I were sitting in Michael Carpenter's truck down the street from Mike's Garage when the tow truck rolled by with the Beetle hanging off the back like a scruffy terrier trying to put the make on a Great Dane. We waited but no car was following Mike. After a few minutes I reached out with my Senses but didn't feel anything. There was no feeling of being watched. There was no sign of a tail. Nothing.

"Now what, Boss?" Molly asked.

I considered some of my options. Thinking back over the previous night I remembered that I hadn't picked up on the vampires until after I left the morgue. Could they have been watching the morgue? Waiting for me to show up?

"Let's go see Butters," I said.

Molly started the engine and we pulled into the early morning traffic. Getting out to the morgue didn't take us long in spite of all of the commuters. Soon we were waiting while Butters signed us in. He looked like crap. Spending your night cutting up corpses that other medical examiners don't want to mess with can't be easy work. Butters has been doing the night shift for a few years now. Ever since he examined several bodies and proclaimed them something other than human. The powers-that-be had tossed him in a mental ward until he'd admitted that he was wrong even though he wasn't. Then they'd tried to run him off by giving him the short end every chance they got. Butters wasn't giving in though. He'd kept his job and shrugged off all of the abuse the bureaucrats had dumped on him. I had to respect a guy that knew his career was at a dead end but wouldn't roll over and give up.

"Has there been any change in your patient?" I asked as we walked down the hall.

"I thought you didn't want me to open the locker. I haven't had a chance to check on him for several hours anyway," Butters said putting his key in the lock. "I had three more cases come in after you left. I just finished the last one. A real mess."

Molly turned a little green. "Is it still in there?"

"Hmmn?" Butters looked around at her. "OH. No. I put her in storage already."

Both Molly and I breathed a sigh of relief. I was sort of tired of seeing dead people. Butters opened his door and we entered to find Mouse staring at the same locker we'd put the body in earlier. It looked like he hadn't moved. When he saw us though he trotted over with his doggy grin and offered his paw to Molly as she knelt down to scratch his ears the way he likes. He gave her a lick with his washcloth sized tongue that swept half the makeup off her face. Laughing she pushed the big dog back and rubbed him between the ears.

"How'd Mouse do?" I asked Butters.

"Fine. He even let me know when he needed to go out and everything," Butters said. "Mostly he sat there and watched the locker."

"Anything out of the ordinary happen? No one came to claim the body or anything?" I asked.

"Nothing," Butters said. "Want to take a look at him?"

I nodded resignedly and Molly stayed where she was pretending to be more interested in petting Mouse than in seeing a corpse. Actually I was more interested in petting Mouse too but I had a job to do. Butters popped the catch on the locker and we hauled out the drawer. I'm not exactly sure what I was expecting but my hand was on my blasting rod. We discovered the bags that had contained the ragged bits of anatomy were empty. I don't mean that the body parts were missing. I mean they were empty. No body parts. No blood. No nothing. Except for the labels they might have just been pulled from the box. I picked one up and looked a bit closer. It wasn't quite empty after all. There were a few small pebbles and some dust in the corner. Butters and I exchanged a look and he reached a hand out to pull the blanket down but immediately jumped back when the blanket moved.

It's not everyday that you see someone rise from the grave. Or for that matter the stainless steel storage locker they were kept in for the last twelve hours or so. I shoved Butters behind me and drew my blasting rod. Molly stood and backed up to the door. Mouse just turned around and wagged his tail slowly with that curious look on his face again. My heart was beating a little too fast for me to register the possible implications of my dog's reaction. That's why I backed up a few steps and pushed Butters farther away.

A hand came out from under the thin blanket and gripped the edge of the locker. It was an ordinary looking hand, scarred across the knuckles, darkly tanned and work hardened. It looked like the hand of someone who'd done manual labor for most of their life. The drawer eased out a few inches more before the hand slipped from the edge and whoever was under the blanket half sighed and half moaned with exhaustion. The other hand pulled the blanket down from the face. The last time I'd seen this guy's face it had been battered, torn and bruised. Now it just looked tired. Light brown hair framed a weather beaten face. Little scars around the temples and a broken nose gave the man the appearance of a welterweight boxer past his prime. The man's head lolled over to look at me with tired blue eyes. He summoned enough strength to smirk when he saw my blasting rod and promptly passed out.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Butters broke the shocked silence that had pervaded the room for several minutes. "Um... Now what, Harry?"

I don't think any of us had an answer for the moment. Any of us except for Mouse that is. The big dog ambled over and stood on his hind legs to rest his front paws on the metal drawer the man was laying on. Mouse leaned in and gave the guy a sniff and a lick. The guy didn't move. It was such a homely reaction that I lowered my blasting rod to point it at the floor. Butters just giggled.

"Maybe," Molly said from over by the door. "You should check to see if he's still alive."

Butters looked at me and I nodded. As I've said, Butters is not a doctor but he does have most of the training. He was a little shaky as he lifted the guy's wrist and checked for a pulse. A frown creased his face and he quickly turned to lift one of the guy's eyelids. Forgetting his apprehension, Butters threw back the blanket and looked puzzled and a little amazed by what he saw. I stepped closer and discovered that where Butters had sliced the torso open when he'd begun his examination there was only a slight discoloration. It looked sort of like when you scratch yourself and leave the skin pink but not abraded. There was no scar. No evidence that there had ever been a cut. In fact the only scars we could see were on the hands, face and a large one on the right forearm. All of those looked very old. Healed many years ago. Mouse raised his eyes to look at us and wagged his tail as if to say everything was alright.

"Well?" I asked Butters.

"His pulse is weak but steady. His pupils react." The little medical examiner shook his head. "It's like he's just exhausted or something."

"I guess coming back from the dead would be kinda hard on you," I said. The situation was a little more complicated for me now. Back a few Halloweens ago I'd come across a necromancer that had used her power to bring a man back from the dead after he'd been killed in an accident. She hadn't been able to heal his wounds but she had drawn him from the realms of the dead. The EMTs on the scene had patched him up as best they could and gotten him to an emergency room where the doctors were able to stabilize him and save his life. I was worried that I had come across something similar. If this guy was a necromancer then I would, as a Warden of the White Council, be forced to take him into custody and deliver him to the justice of the Council. Something just didn't feel right though. There was more to the situation than what I could put together here. Parts of the puzzle were missing. Besides, Mouse wouldn't be acting like he was if there were dark magic at play.

I extended my hand over the former corpse and extended my Senses with it. The feeling was instant and powerful. I forced myself to hold on long enough to get a real feel of the magic emanating from the man. I'd felt this before. I knew I had felt it before but I wasn't sure where. My thoughts were interrupted by a low warning growl from Mouse. He'd dropped back down to the floor and was facing the door of the lab. The growl had been brief and nearly sub-vocal but all of us had heard it.

"What's wrong, Harry?" Butters asked. His voice had taken on the nervous tone he'd had earlier.

"Not sure," I said. "Trouble. Maybe company."

I moved to the door and opened it a crack. The hall was empty. Everything was quiet and ordinary.

"Wait here," I said stepping out into the hall. "I'll be right back."

I'm not the most stealthy guy in the world but over my career I've had to learn to be quiet and sneaky. I moved down the empty hall with not so much as a squeak of my soles on the tile. I know that doesn't sound like a great feat but when you consider the fact that vampires, werewolves and a host of other supernatural and preternatural creatures can hear far better than even the most sensitive of human ears I think you'll agree that it was no small thing. I got to the corner where the main hall met the entrance hall and I stopped. I could hear a conversation coming from the guard's station at the security door. I breathed out and calmed down forcing my heart back to a normal rhythm. Then I listened. It's not a magical ability. I'm pretty sure that anyone can do it if they practice. Basically I just tune out all of the background noise like the rush of air through heating ducts or the muzac playing over bad speakers. I focus on what I want to hear and it comes to me. In this case I wanted to listen to what the guard was saying to whoever it was at the desk.

"...have to come back after eight." The guard sounded bored. "I can't let you go back to the labs unescorted."

"But all I want to know is if my cousin is here," said a familiar voice. The last time I'd heard it the man had been speaking into a cell phone. "I don't mind filling out the paperwork or whatever else needs to be done."

"I appreciate that, sir," the guard replied still bored. "But there are only a few nightshift personnel here at the moment. The office staff will be in after eight and they'll be able to help you."

"So the nightshift people couldn't show me any of the bodies?" I was right. It was Gray Eyes. "Could I just wait here? Maybe someone will come in early."

I didn't stick around to hear the rest of the conversation. Even if the guard told Gray Eyes to leave I knew the vampire would just sit in the parking lot waiting for me. As quickly and quietly as I could I slunk back down to Butters' lab.

"Well?" Butters asked as soon as the door was closed.

"Vampire," I said going to our guest in his drawer. "I want to get this guy out of here. I think he's involved in the murder Murphy and I are investigating."

"Him?" Butters' eyes went wide.

"Answer something for me." I lifted the blanket to expose the lower half of the guy's body. Like his arm the leg had mysteriously reattached itself. I don't usually check out a guy's package, so to speak, but I had to look to be sure. I nodded once I'd seen what I needed to and dropped the blanket again. "When you did the exam on Danica Raith, you said you had learned she'd had a lot of sex recently."

Butters glanced at Molly, looked embarrassed but nodded. "We tested for rape and ummm... semen and all the usual things we have to include in our reports."

I made a point of not looking at Molly and asked, "What color was her pubic hair?"

Butters blinked at me, turned bright red and replied, "She... Um... didn't have any."

"Harry," Molly interrupted. "The vampire. Remember?"

"Think you're up to a veil, Molly?" I asked as I removed the blanket from the ex-corpse.

"Sure," she said. Molly can whip up a veil faster and better than anyone I've ever met. She isn't super powerful but veiling comes naturally to her.

I quickly explained my plan to them and a few minutes later all of us were moving down the hall as quiet as church mice. Butters lead the way while Molly, Mouse, the un-corpse and I followed under one of her wonder veils. I'd slung the guy over my shoulders in a fireman's carry. It's the best way to cart around anyone who's been incapacitated. A very small person can actually carry a good bit of weight if they can get the leverage to do it. Fortunately for me the guy wasn't all that big. He was just under average height with a build like an iron worker or a farmer. He had real muscle, not the sort that you see on guys who go to the gym all the time. Still, he wasn't heavy. Of course, he wasn't my brother either. For decency he was now clothed in a set of blue scrubs Butters had taken from a closet in his lab. The guy might get a little cold but we were beggared for options.

Butters stopped at the desk and signed himself out before going to the door. As he opened it he dropped his keys and a couple of magazines. While he collected them Butters propped the door open so that the rest of us could pass unnoticed. The main doors were straight ahead. Butters pushed both of them wide while taking in a big breath as though he were trying to fill his lungs with clean morning air. As we passed through the little lobby I looked over at Gray Eyes sitting quietly in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs. He never saw us. Out in the parking lot Butters went to his car and we turned our steps toward the big white truck. I scanned around the best I could with my vision partly blocked by the body over my shoulders. Not far from the door was the Land Rover I'd seen last night at the liquor store. There was no one in it. At the truck Molly opened the passenger door and we loaded Mouse and my burden in the back seat. Molly and I climbed in and she drove out into the early morning traffic again.

We'd been on the road for a couple minutes heading down Eisenhower when Molly looked in the rearview mirror. I saw her go a little pale and glanced over my shoulder. Mouse was looking out the back window.

"I think we're being followed, Harry," Molly said stiffly. "Big green car back there. It followed us through the last couple of turns and up the on ramp."

I looked closer at the car and recognized it as the one that had followed me into the parking lot last night. Damnit! I should have known.

"What do you want me to do?" Molly asked.

"We need to get out of this traffic," I said. "Take us toward Garfield Park. There won't be so many people there at this hour."

We sped down the Eisenhower and Molly took the next off ramp heading toward the park through the nearly deserted side streets. I was watching the sedan as she did. Sure enough, the big car followed us. I love it when things go so well. Molly was focused on her driving but she was nervously stealing looks in the rearview.

"What are we going to do?" she asked.

"I'm hoping that we can lose them in the park or in one of the neighborhoods near it." I tried to sound more confident than I felt. I did not want to tangle with any vampires while I had Molly with me. I was toying with the idea of getting out of sight and booting my apprentice out of the truck when the sedan sped up.

"Hold on!" I shouted.

The sedan rammed into the rear bumper just hard enough to rattle us without doing any real damage. They wanted to get our attention. Mouse bared his teeth and made one of those sub-vocal growls of his that you feel more than hear. Molly struggled with the wheel but was able to keep control without great difficulty. Her breathing got faster and her knuckles went white. I saw her look into the rearview mirror and then back to the road. I pulled my .44 from my duster pocket. I didn't want to get into a running gun battle in the middle of a Chicago neighborhood but I sure as hell didn't want these bozos getting comfortable with ramming us.

Molly pressed the gas and the big V eight rumbled angrily as we careered down the street. The sedan matched her speed and then leaped at us again. This time they rammed us hard enough to knock Mouse off the back seat and Molly had to fight the wheel to keep us straight. As I watched a hand came out of the passenger side window gripping an automatic. Bullets zinged by as we thundered along. In the movies they always make it look easy to hit a car from another moving car but in real life it's hard as hell to aim. The back window burst into a spider web pattern as a round finally struck the cab. I shook out my shield bracelet and focused my will. As more bullets pelted into us I felt little bursts of heat when they struck the shield. Molly kept her head even when they rammed us again and the remains of the back window fell out into the bed.

I'd had just about enough of this crap. Someone was going to get killed if I didn't do something soon. Even with my shield up there were plenty of bystanders who could be struck by a ricochet or someone might just drive their car out in front of Molly and then things would get messy. I laid my pistol barrel across the back of the seat and when I saw the gun disappear back into the sedan I dropped the shield and snapped off two rounds. I was lucky. The first round tore a gouge out of their hood and the second smashed a hole through the windshield at a point between the driver and passenger. The sedan swerved wildly and slowed. Molly turned sharply into the ball fields as we finally reached Garfield Park. Our pursuers followed and increased speed again to match Molly's frantic efforts to escape. As the gun came back out I drew in my will. Now I'm not Mister Finesse so I wasn't sure if what I was about to do was going to work but on the off chance that they were mortals I couldn't blast these jerks with a fireball. The most stringently enforced of the Seven Laws of Magic is Thou Shalt not Kill. With that in mind I focussed on the weapon and sent a flash of energy out with a growl.

"Fuego reduzido!" I said savagely.

An instant later the gun exploded as the ammunition in it cooked off in a miniature cataclysm. Bits of the weapon and I'm sure parts of the hand that had held it flew in all directions. The sedan swerved again but was back on us in an instant. This time though they came up on our passenger side and tried to perform what cops call a PIT maneuver. It's meant to cause a vehicle to go out of control. When properly executed the cop will ram a suspects car just hard enough to break traction and cause the suspect vehicle to spin in a one-eighty. The sedan slammed into the truck a little too far forward. The truck was a beefy machine that absorbed the impact with a loud bang and crunching of metal. I checked quickly to see that everyone was alright and noticed a fierce look in Molly's eyes. She cast a glance at the side mirror and hooked the steering wheel over hard. There was a resounding clash of metal on metal as the big truck overbore the car. Molly held her course long enough to push the sedan completely off the road and into a low chain link fence. I watched as the once stately vehicle tore the fence apart and ran up on one of the poles. Instantly a cloud of smoke or steam came roiling out from under the hood. The sedan's forward momentum carried it out onto the ball field in a cloud of gray smoke.

Molly looked at me with a touch of worry in her eyes. "Dad's going to kill me."


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

"What the hell, Harry?" Karrin Murphy grumbled when she opened her front door to find us all standing like waifs from a Dickens novel on her front step. She was still dressed in what I assumed she'd been sleeping in; a pair of sweat pants and a loose T-shirt. In her hand was a compact automatic gleaming lethally in the early morning light.

"It's a bit of a long story, Karrin," I said adjusting the position of my burden before he slipped off my shoulders. "I need a place to hide this guy."

Murphy narrowed her eyes at me, caught sight of the truck and grudgingly stepped back. "Come on in. This had better be good."

Inside I dumped the guy on her sofa and stood stretching my back to get the kink out. Mouse found a comfortable spot in the corner and Molly stood just inside the doorway of the living room while Karrin eyed her new guest. She looked at me questioningly.

"Remember the body that Butters called you about?" I asked her. Karrin nodded. "This is him."

"Why, Dresden, did you bring a dead body to my house?" Murphy asked causticly. "Why is it now on my sofa? And just what the hell happened to the truck?"

"He's not dead anymore. I need to hide him from someone. Somebody tried to run us off the road and Molly creamed them," I said answering her questions in order. "And I think he's the guy we've been looking for."

"Not dead ANYMORE? Molly creamed who?" Murphy half turned on my apprentice. "What's going on? Who is this guy, Dresden?"

"I don't know yet." I spent the next few minutes explaining what had happened last night and what we had been up to this morning. Murphy didn't relax through the whole explanation. "I think if you were to cross reference the fingerprints from the hotel room and the prints taken from this guy you'd find a set to match. I'm pretty sure this is our mystery man. I'm also pretty sure that things would be bad if either Lara or Gray Eyes were to get their hands on him."

"And you have no idea who he actually is?" Murphy asked. "Is he a wizard or something?"

"All I know is that the mystery man flew to Chicago from Alaska. Danica made the arrangements for both the flight and his hotel room. Lara gave me three hairs so that I could track down the mystery man. When I used those hairs they pointed me to the morgue. At first I thought Lara might have gotten hairs from Danica but she didn't have any."

"Wait," Murphy interrupted me. "What do you mean she didn't have any? I saw the body. That wasn't a wig."

Molly coughed to catch Murphy's attention. Murphy looked at the girl and Molly pointed down to her belt line.

"Oh," Murphy said catching on. She rolled her eyes. "Those hairs."

"Um... Yeah. Those hairs," I said not looking at either woman. "Anyway, this guy was taken to the morgue after he'd jumped in front of a train. I don't know why he jumped in front of the train. I don't know what the vampires want with him. I don't have any idea how he was able to put himself back together. But I think that is at least part of why the vampires are interested in him." Things were whirling around in my brain again and suddenly I was reminded of what had happened when I had opened my Sight at the hotel. "I don't think he's a wizard, Murph, but I'm starting to think that he was the cause of Danica Raith's death. I have a feeling, though, that he wasn't trying to murder her."

"So what do you want me to do with him?" Murphy moved to a chair and sat unhappily.

"Keep him in protective custody." I sat down in the other chair. The effects of a nearly sleepless night were starting to catch up with me. "Maybe you could find out something about the sedan. The usual stuff."

"More than likely it's either stolen or otherwise untraceable," Murphy grumbled. "It's worth a try though. What about the Land Rover?"

"I never got a look at the plates," I said.

"It was in the morgue parking lot this morning, right?" Murphy asked. I nodded. "Then it'll be on their cameras. I know one of the guys that works security there. He used to work with my dad. I'll give him a call and maybe we can come up with something."

"Have you learned anything from your guys canvassing the hotels?" I asked.

"They just started last night. Their reports aren't even filed yet." Murphy slumped back in her chair. "What do I do when this guy wakes up? Think he's dangerous?"

"He could be," I admitted. "Mouse doesn't seem to be concerned about him though."

Mouse thumped his tail at mention of his name. I really wasn't too worried about the guy at this point. Mouse can feel things that go right by me. He'd growled at Molly the very first time he'd met her. Back then she'd been dabbling with the dark side of magic. She hadn't known how dangerous such dabbling could be and hadn't had anyone there to warn her or teach her. She'd gotten into some serious trouble trying to do something good for her friends. Her heart had been in the right place but her method had nearly driven her friends insane. After a major ordeal and a trial by the White Council that had nearly turned out bad, Molly became my apprentice. Mouse didn't growl at her anymore. And right now he wasn't growling at this guy.

"So what do you want to do with him?" Murphy prodded.

"Is your guest bed made up?"

Molly and I lifted the guy off Murphy's sofa and hauled him into the guest bedroom where we deposited him onto the bed. Murphy spent a minute tucking him in while I took a second to check his pulse. It was steady. Though I couldn't say that it was strong I knew it wasn't weak. Through all this Mouse looked on sedately. I patted the big dog on the head and told him to keep an eye on things. He wagged his tail and gave me a doggy grin that told me he would see to it. A few minutes later Molly and I were pulling back onto the street headed for Mike's Garage. If anyone could fix bashed in fenders and bullet holes it was Mike. He certainly got enough practice.

Mike wasn't around and his tow truck was gone. I figured he must have been out on a call. I scribbled a quick note and slipped it under his door. The Beetle was parked out front but I didn't have the keys. I opened the door, which Mike has instructions to leave unlocked, and got my staff from between the seats. Not wanting to leave the truck just sitting there Molly and I drove home. I really wanted some sleep and my stomach was starting to think my throat had been slit so a meal was in order. This time Mister found me ready for his usual greeting and looked a bit disappointed when I was left upright after the impact.

Once inside I left Molly to stoke the fire and I made sandwiches. One day I'm going to have to learn to cook. The bright side is that I'm hell on wheels when it comes to making a good sandwich. I can knock one together in no time and nobody complains about the quality or quantity of the fillings. We had just settled down to our lunch when my phone rang.

"Harry?" Murphy's voice sounded stressed. She was on edge the way she gets when we're about to get into something dangerous. "I think you need to get over here. The guy is awake and nearly lucid. Mouse is acting kinda funny."

"Funny?" I asked. "Funny how?"

"He got up a few minutes ago and he's walking around looking at all of the doors and windows. I can't figure out what h..." That was when her phone died. It was too sudden to be caused by me and besides Murphy is across town. Even I can't knock out a phone that suddenly from so far away.

I didn't hesitate and Molly was right there with me. She drove the battered pickup through the late morning traffic like a cabbie in hopes of a big tip. When we got to Karrin's house there was a big black mark on the front door. As I got closer I was able to make out the tell tale signs of a heel print. Karrin has more than just a stout door. Unlike mine it was installed by a pro. Steel faced and solid cored it's hung in a reenforced frame with two dead bolt locks. The door was still sound but badly dented where the heal had struck. I was about to press the button for the bell when the door swung open and Murphy greeted me with a large frame automatic in hand. I recognized the gun as her Model 1911 .45 calibre Colt. A round from such a gun will knock you on your butt and if it doesn't kill you it will make you want to do nothing more than curl up and cry.

"Get in here!" Murphy barked at us waving the gun. Her eyes scanned the street looking for any sign of a threat.

"What happened?" I asked as Molly came through the door. Murphy shut it and threw the locks.

"Couple of guys tried to get in," she said as she lead the way back to the guest bed room. "One got me to come to the door. Claimed he was a phone repairman. I didn't open the door. While he was distracting me I heard the window break and mouse started barking. By the time I got back here there was blood on the floor but no sign of an intruder."

I looked to the window where Mouse still stood guard warily. There was a good deal of blood but it wasn't the crimson of a human. It was pinkish, thin. The blood of a white court vampire. I looked to Murphy.

"Did you see anyone?" I asked.

"Black hair. A male." The voice came from the bed. Our man was awake and sitting up. "I'm pretty sure it was White Court."


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

"I suppose you want to know who I am," our man said as he swallowed the last bite of his third hamburger. We had moved from the guest room to Murphy's kitchen where she had allowed Molly to make us some lunch. Karrin never lets me do anything in her kitchen but make coffee. Molly was still frying frozen patties on the stove while Karrin and Mouse stared down the hall to the room with the broken window. Mouse had eaten four patties himself.

"That'll do for starters," I told the guy then took a bite of my own burger.

"You're a wizard." It wasn't a question. "I haven't spoken with one of your kind in about sixty years. You're White Council too."

"Yeah. How do you know about the White Council?" I asked.

"Did a couple jobs for them a long time ago." He drank a sip of his second soda and eyed Mouse. "Fu Dog. Long time since I've seen one."

"I'm picking up on the fact that you aren't what you appear but I don't want to sit hear and play twenty questions," I said. I was tired and cranky. Not to mention that I had a case to get on with and I didn't like the idea that White Court vampires had tried to enter my friend's house. I really needed some answers.

"Sorry," he apologized. "My brain is always a little scatty after I... Well, after I wake up from being dead."

"Oh. My. God." Molly whispered looking over her shoulder. Her eyes were about the size of dinner plates.

"My name was Wilfred of Luton. I go by William Luton these days." He paused for another drink. "I was born in Luton, England in the year of our Lord 1038."

"Holy Highlander, Batman," I breathed. This was another occasion that I don't know what I had been expecting but whatever it was it hadn't been this.

"That movie was true?" Molly asked incredulously. Karrin frowned and raised an eyebrow at me expectantly.

"No," Wilfred laughed. He had a good laugh but it sounded like he didn't use it much. "Not a bad movie though. The sword play was too stylized but not bad."

"How can you still be alive?" Karrin asked. In spite of herself she was clearly surprised. "I mean, again. Or..."

"Has the wizard ever told you about a death curse?" William asked.

"Sure." Karin nodded. I had told her about death curses and how they worked a couple months back. For the first time I could recall Karrin stammered, "A wizard can cast one just as he's dying. Sort of an 'I got you last.' thing."

"Pretty much." William considered her for a moment before going on. "That's why I'm still alive."

"Someone's curse was to make you live forever?" Molly put in. "Not much of curse."

"Try it sometime," William's eyes dropped and his voice held a strange note. It was distant and sad. Still, something about his tone made me think he wasn't answering her question. Over the years I've seen and heard a lot. Curses can be pretty awful things. They can affect families for generations. They can be stupid little things that do little more than annoy. They can cause businesses to fail or pro ball teams to lose. I had never heard of a curse that would keep someone alive no matter what. Until now I hadn't considered that such a thing would really be much of a curse. Until now I hadn't seen a man live through getting pasted by a train and then being carved up for an autopsy. Just goes to show that for every silver lining there's a gray cloud. This one might be damn near black. I made my decision and let it pass for the moment.

"Who was it?" I asked.

"Beddau. Cadmael Beddau," William said. I didn't recognize the name but that didn't surprise me. The man would have died close to a thousand years ago. "He was a Welshman. William the Conqueror had just taken control of England. He was still solidifying his claim. Hell. I'd fought against him at Hastings. But once he was king I joined him. A lot of men did. Anyway, someone found out I'd been a bit of a bandit and knew the area where Beddau lived. Beddau had been using his influence to insight rebellion. So the king wanted him dead. People knew who I was and they knew that I'd fought the Normans. It didn't take long for me to find Beddau. I spent some time getting closer to him. Finally I slipped into his house one fine evening and stabbed him in the chest. I was young then. I turned and ran. I didn't find out about the curse right off."

"So you can't die." I said.

"Oh, I can die." William drew in a long breath and let it out in a slow sigh. "I've been killed often. I fought in as many wars as I could come across. I was hoping to die. I've been a soldier, a sailor, a pirate an explorer. You name it. I've most likely done it at one time or another. I've tried time and again to be killed. I spent time as a monk. I was a hermit for a few years. I was even insane for a while. They burned me at the stake in Spain. Took me six months to recover from that."

"So why do the vampires want you?" Murphy asked.

"They think they can live off me without having to prey on humans." William shrugged. "That's usually the reason."

"Can they?" I asked.

"The Red Court tried," he answered. "They even held me captive for a time."

"Why'd they let you go?" I asked.

"They didn't," he said with a half smile. "Ever heard of House Flavia?"

"Yeah. Minor House of the Red Court about three-hundred years ago." I said. I had read about them when I was doing research on vampirism. I'd been trying to find a cure for it to help my former girlfriend, Susan. the research had not panned out and was now on the back burner. "Some internal struggle destroyed them. Not much we know about them now."

"Took me about fifty years to hunt them all down," William said.

I just stared at him. Accounting for even a minor house by yourself was a major thing. More than major really. It was damned near impossible. I knew from personal experience how tough it was to take on a Red Court vampire. I'd taken out a minor noble and her retainers several years ago with the help of some friends and a whole lot of ghosts. My mind flashed back to a burning chateau and the image of Susan with eyes gone completely black. I pushed the rush of memories away. No time for regrets right now.

"So Red Court vampires can feed on you but not the White Court?" Murphy asked. William shook his head. "Why not?"

"No. Red court vampires can't feed on me either. They can't use my blood. I'm not sure why but it has something to do with the curse," William told her. It made sense in a way. I remembered the bags that had contained his body parts. After he had healed the bags had nothing but bits of debris in them. I was willing to bet that everything else went back where it had come from. "A White Court vampire's hunger gets the better of them. They lose control. They always try to eat the whole thing."

"I don't understand," Molly said.

"The White Court can only process so much life. They need to feed to stay alive or to heal wounds. If they try to feed too much they can over do it. Normally that's not a problem for them. They can sate their hunger and regain control of the demon. But them trying to feed off me would be like you trying to drink a river. There's no end to it. Their demon doesn't know restraint. It just feeds until they explode."

"That's why Danica looked the way she did," I said. "Butters said that her cells were ruptured from the inside. Massive amounts of damage that happened to all of her cells."

"But with a source of food right there wouldn't she have just healed no matter how many of her cells burst?" Murphy asked.

"She did," William said. "But it takes time for a vampire to heal. Not much time but pretty soon there is so much damage happening, and to parts that are vital, that they can't keep up. She was able to sustain herself for a while but it was only a matter of time and the demon wouldn't stop feeding. She died."

"So you took her to that hotel to kill her?" I asked.

"Danica was old. Maybe six-hundred years," William said. "I had hoped she would be strong enough to draw off all of my life. She knew what I was. She wanted to 'try me out'. That's why she brought me to Chicago. She wanted her kin to be able to feed off of me. Not just one at a time. At least that's the impression I got from reading between the lines."

"What do you mean?" I asked. This was getting more interesting by the moment.

"She said that her house could offer me things that the other house couldn't," William said. "They would give me pleasures unending. Relieve my misery. Take away all of my pain. You know how they always try to tempt people. They're like drug pushers. 'Here. Take this free sample.' Then when you're hooked they start demanding things from you. She was promising all sorts of things."

"Anything specific?" Karrin asked.

"Pleasures of the flesh. Orgies and the like," William said with a shrug. "I've heard it all before. Nothing new under the sun."

"What did she mean by the other House?" I asked suspecting I already knew.

"I had been approached by the agents of either Skavis or Malvora," William said. "I wasn't sure which they represented but I think it was Skavis."

"Why Skavis?" I asked.

"Malvora feed on fear don't they? What am I afraid of anymore?"

I could see his point. Malvora gets off on the fright that people have of anything. Anything from scary movies to real life terror. Wilfred of Luton might have had the normal fears of anyone of his time but William Luton had seen far too much to be afraid of most things. When you know you are coming back no matter what happens, death loses its sting. He was probably so used to seeing friends die that fear for their safety was muted down to almost nothing. Depression, though, would most likely be a daily experience for William. He certainly seemed a little on the morose side. Jaded and care worn. Ripe fruit for the House of Skavis who feed on despair.

"What I don't get," Molly said. "Why would they go through so much trouble to find you? From what Harry says they were looking for you all over the world. Why do that? It's not like they'd starve without you. There are plenty of people they could feed on. Even if you could feed an army of them."

And Bingo! I had it. Or at least I thought I did. Then Murphy's cell phone rang.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Murphy glanced at me then went into the living room to get her phone. She flipped it open like an old style Star Trek communicator, glanced at the little screen thingy there and smiled at it before pushing a button and answering.

"Hi, Butters. What's up?" she said. Her face and posture changed almost instantly. She looked tense, worried and angry all at once. Without looking at me Karrin stepped to a little side boy, opened a drawer and got a pad and pencil. She scribbled something then said, "I'll tell him. Let me speak to Butters." Her voice changed slightly. It became reassuring and as she spoke she was pausing to listen between her sentences. "Are you okay, Waldo? Stay calm. Don't worry. We're coming."

I'm not sure at what point we had all gotten to our feet but when Murphy hung up all of us, including Mouse, were standing in the kitchen door staring at her.

"They got butters." Karrin set her phone down. "They want to talk to you, Harry. He said on neutral ground. He said you'd know what that meant."

"Mac's," I said

"I figured," Murphy said. "Harry, this is kidnapping. Falls under my jurisdiction."

Oh boy. Now they were in trouble. Mess with Murphy in her own home and run off bleeding, she'll overlook it as all things even. At least until she finds you. Kidnap one of her friends. Suffer her wrath. I wasn't sure I wanted Murphy getting tangled up in another fur ball with me but I knew that I wouldn't be able to talk her out of it. It's better to have Murphy at your side than in your face. A lot better.

"Okay, Murph. Did he say when?"

"Six tonight," she said grimly. Her eyes matched her tone.

"Mr. dresden, they're going to kill your friend," William said matter-of-factly.

"Not if I can help it." I gave him a hard look. "How much of what you just told me was true?"

"All of it," he said.

"Look me in the eye and tell me that," I said.

William smiled faintly and nodded. As our eyes met the Soul Gaze began. I've been a full fledged wizard for a bunch of years now. One thing we do is called a Soul Gaze. Someone smart once said that the eyes are the windows to the soul. Frighteningly enough they were pretty well right. A wizard can look anyone mortal in the eye and see the content of that person's character. It's not a lie detector test but it sure gives you a good idea of how likely the subject of your Gaze would be to lie. I've seen all manner of things in peoples eyes. Fears, passions, curiosities and hopes. I've seen how those people view themselves and others. Some things I've seen are wonderful. Others are scary. William Lotun was neither. He was sad and spooky. The average person's soul is usually depicted to me as a room of some sort. A box that neatly, or not so neatly, contains the hopes and fears and all of the other nerosses that we thinking creatures carry around inside of our heads. It's always one room. William had just one room too. It stretched for miles. That wasn't the spooky part but bad enough on its own. The spooky part was that William's room was a sepulcher complete with a low ceiling supported by stone arches, white marble tombs and the distant echo of dripping water. It took me a minute to locate him. Usually the person is right there in front of me but not William. I had to "walk" about half the length of a football field. I found him sitting on the lid to a sarcophagus with the carven figure of a very beautiful woman on the lid. She was depicted with long hair and fine, strong features. Her hands were resting crossed upon her breast with a carven flower under them. William looked up at me. That was the sad part. The look on his face told of heartbreaking loss. It was the same sort of look people get when they've survived a disaster that claimed everything they owned. The look of a parent that has lost a child. The look of someone that has nothing left but still has to go on. In the far distance I heard the howl of a dog and the connection broke. I staggered a bit but found my footing quickly enough. William was still looking at me. Did I mention that in a Soul Gaze the person gets to look back at you? So far everyone who had seen me through my eyes had come out with an unnerved feeling. Once upon a time I'd even had someone faint. William just gave me an ironic smile.

"Harry," Molly said softly. "Are you alright?"

"Hugn?" I said not too brightly. "Yeah. I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" she persisted. "I've never seen a Soul Gaze last that long."

"How long?" I asked getting my bearings back.

"About half a minute," Murphy said. A Soul Gaze usually takes only a few seconds. I guess a life of close to a thousand years builds up more baggage to sort through.

"I need to get some things from my hotel room," William said.

"Aside from the problems of your key and a total lack of I.D. the hotel is probably being watched," Murphy told him.

"I'm not planning to go through the front door, Miss Murphy." William sounded sure of himself. Like maybe he had done this sort of thing a time or three.

"If you go I'm going in with you," I told him. "Just in case."

Murphy drove us over to the Alistair's neighborhood. It was a very respectable stretch in a district with few private homes and a lot of small office buildings, delis, coffee shops, and expensive little restaurants. William was wearing one of Murphy's jackets. She had bought it to go over her armored vest and shoulder rig. On William it was just a little tight across the shoulders but otherwise fit pretty well. No shoes were to be had at her place so he wore a pair of pink flip-flop sandals that were too small for his feet. Still and all he carried himself like he was in charge.

We got out of Murphy's car about a block from the hotel and strode unobtrusively between two buildings. I was following close behind William. I was nervous out in the open. If we were seen by anyone involved Butters could get killed. I also wasn't absolutely certain that William wouldn't try to give me the slip. I didn't believe he would but there are some instances in my past that have made me cautious about trusting people. William walked down the alley for about twenty feet and then stopped in front of a dumpster. The rank smell of old trash and spoiled milk wafted out from under the lid. Yummy.

"Give me a hand," he said as he got next to the big metal box and made ready to push. I joined him and we shoved the thing out of the way. Below it was what looked like an ordinary plate of rusted steel. It was a couple feet square with a slot cut through it to serve as a hand hold. William leaned down and pulled the inch thick slab out of the opening with more ease than I would have given him credit for.

"Where's this go?" I asked thinking I already knew the answer.

"Tunnels." William looked at me. "You know about Undertown. This is just a small side tunnel. Not even really part of the warrens and rat holes. Just something left over from the good old days when bootleg whiskey was king."

"You've been down there?" I asked.

He smiled in a way that made me think he had. He didn't answer though. William just squatted down over the hole and slid in. Apparently there was a foot hold down there because he changed grips on the lip of the hole and lowered himself through the opening into the darkness below. I followed him in with some apprehension. I was starting to wonder if William was about to bonk me on the head and take off. Murphy wouldn't come looking for us for at least thirty minutes. If William left me he could just scamper off down to Undertown and we'd never find him again. When my feet finally settled onto the hard floor of the tunnel I was so worked up that I nearly jumped when William cracked a chemical glow stick and shook it up.

"You ought to warn a guy when you do something like that," I growled.

"Take it easy," he said. "Do you smell that?"

"No." I sniffed the air. Nothing.

"Malk," he said. "Not too long ago. What the hell is a malk doing this close to the surface in this neighborhood?"

I shrugged and tried not to shudder. Malks are large feline shaped Winter Fae. Imagine a gray cat the size of a spaniel with human level intelligence and a malicious streak a mile wide. That's pretty much what a malk is. Sometimes they hunt in packs. I strained my eyes to see beyond the edge of the light cast by the chemstick. Nothing. If the malk were still there chances were good that we wouldn't be able to see it anyway. They blend with shadow the way smoke blends with fog.

I gave William a hard look. I'd just realized something. "Where did the glow stick come from?"

"Same place this did," he said holding up one of those plastic door keys hotels use now. "I've been doing this a long time, Dresden. I try to leave myself a backup plan. Good hotels may be tougher to get into but there are still plenty of ways. What do you say we get going?"

William lead the way down the tunnel. It seemed to have been made about seventy-five or eighty years ago. The walls were brick with a concrete floor and ceiling. Here and there pipes ran along the wall or across the tunnel but there were no side entrances. I should have felt relieved but the thought of the malk kept prickling at the back of my mind. The tunnel lead more or less straight to a narrow, unfriendly looking steel door. William stopped in front of it and reached to the top of the jam. He pulled down a slim metal rod and inserted it into an inconspicuous slot between two bricks to the left of the door. There was a click and the door opened inward slightly. We pushed through into what looked like an old laundry room. Cold. Unnaturally quiet. Creepy. Damn. What kind of five star hotel was this? William stashed the rod back where he'd gotten it before we crossed the room to a set of wooden stairs. At the top of those we came out into a service hall. I was glad to be out in a well lit place but there were no people around. Normally that would have been a comfort since really we weren't supposed to be there but I was sure something was wrong. Any second now we were going to be spotted. There would be vampires all over us and we wouldn't be able to get away. From the service hall it was a matter of finding the lobby and taking the main elevator up to the eighth floor. Like I mentioned before, I don't like elevators but I've never been so glad to get off of one as I was that day. I stood across the hall as William opened his door. As soon as he started into the room though I was on his heals practically pushing him through the door. That's when it hit me. A wave of panic so overwhelming that I couldn't think straight. I had no idea what had come over me. I don't scare easily but here I was shaking like a leaf. I scrambled to get that goddam door closed and even threw the bolt. Whatever was out there wasn't going to get me. Unfortunately it wasn't out there. It was in the room with us.

Tall, pale and raven haired a figure stepped from the alcove where the closet was. I nearly screamed but I was so frightened that no sound would come out. William was frozen in place. The vampire was coming for him and I was next.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

The vampire smiled a sinister smile and another wave of fear spread out from him. My knees shivered violently. I nearly sprawled on the floor. A silly part of my brain wondered if I was going to soil myself (otherwise known as crapping your pants). I was trying to think but the fear washed over me like a wave of reeking sewage. Scampering thoughts and memories of terrors real and imagined fought with the rational shreds of my mind for dominance. I was a wizard of the White Council! And wizards can be killed in all manner of horrible ways. I had to save my friend! I couldn't even save myself. These things washed back and forth in eddies like an incoming tide. All the time the vampire was coming closer and William was just standing there staring at it. The fear was like nothing I had ever experienced except... Except for Madeline Raith's kiss on a rainy night in the woods of an island called Demon Reach. I remembered the pleasure of the sensation as she pressed the muzzle of her Desert Eagle to my forehead on the spot that she had just kissed. The memory of that sensation was as powerful as the sensation of fear that I now felt. I grasped at that memory. It was slippery but I was holding onto it. I had survived that night. I had lived to fight an enemy that was so far out of my weight class that even with the help of the island's spirit I had barely been able to hold my own long enough for help to arrive. The fear welled up again as the memory specter of the Naagloshii surged out to swallow me. But what it brought with it was not only fear. It brought anger too. Anger over what that creature had done to my friends and family and what it had tried to do to me. I latched onto my anger and drew it in. My will came with it. Invisible power that I could shape into a weapon. If only I could focus.

I looked up at the vampire through tear bleared eyes as it took another step toward William. It seemed like everything was happening in slow motion. At that moment the vampire was concentrating most of its effort on William. The look on its face told me that something was not going the way it had planned and that gave me hope. I dragged the ragged edges of my will together but it was so hard to think. The fear kept battering at my reason. I couldn't balance the equations in my mind. Spells aren't just arcane words and phrases. They are complex ideas. An understanding of how natural energies flow. If you can't set those energies into a particular pattern, your spell won't work. It's just wasted effort and unfocused force. I collapsed to my knees finally unable to stand anymore. The vampire looked at me. Its attention drawn away from William for just an instant but in that instant William struck.

I've seen White Court vampires fight. Fast does not even begin to describe them. Speed won't save you from a sucker punch though. William hammered his left fist into the vampire's throat hard enough to drive the creature a step to its right. It wheeled on the immortal and in that moment all of its concentrated malice fell on William and he shrank back. My mind cleared and I sent a blast of air at it compressed into a nearly solid bar the size of a baseball bat. The vampire was knocked ass over teakettle across the room to sprawl against the headboard of the massive king sized bed. William dove for the counter by the sink as I fumbled for my blasting rod. The vampire was already moving as my rod slid out of my duster. It kicked the rod catching the tips of my fingers in the process. A vice made of deadly, cold flesh wrapped around my adams apple and I was lifted bodily from the floor. Hate and a nearly maniacal rage roiled in those silver eyes. I couldn't breath and my concentration was shot but I saw William deliver his next surprise. He waded into the vampire from the blind side driving his fist into the thing's kidney. I felt the air forced out of it in a whuff. Surprise and pain flashed over the thing's contorting face as it tossed me like a sack of meal across the room. I landed on my back next to a chair by the TV stand. As my vision cleared I saw William hit it again in the side of the head. I could hear bones break and figured William's hand had just been pulverized. But I was wrong. An instant later the immortal hammered a left cross into the vampire's jaw knocking it off its feet to land by the door. William was on it before it could even get to its knees. The vampire was hurt bad and William wasn't giving it a chance to heal. His fists descended like pile drivers into the vampire's head and neck. I could hear popping noises and a slapping sound like a meat cleaver biting into a side of beef. In all my days I have never seen a mortal go toe to toe with any vampire using nothing but his fists and come out on the winning end. I was gathering my will waiting for William to clear the line of fire but I needn't have bothered. William straightened up breathing hard. He was splattered from his head to his thighs with pinkish blood and some gray specks that I really did not want to identify. Was that a tooth sliding slowly down his shirt? The vampire wasn't moving. William kicked it in the balls and spat on it. At that point I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd whipped out his privates and pissed on it. I might even have joined him.

"You alright, Dresden?" William asked turning to me.

I let my gathered will drain slowly off like a sigh and nodded. I was in no shape just then to speak. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and rubbed my throat thinking I was going to throw up. Adrenaline was coursing through my veins making my limbs shake. No way I could stand just then. I looked at William and then at the vampire. William must have read the question in my face. He held up his blood soaked hands to display a pair of dark brown leather gloves.

"A gift from Lady Winter," he said. "They're made of ogre hide and sewn with the hair of a zephyr. Strength and speed."

"Christ," I croaked. "You made a deal with a Faery Queen? Haven't you got enough trouble?"

"Just to be clear," William said sardonically. "She was the one that made the deal with me."

"What did she get for the gloves?" I asked as I pushed myself to my feet. I was still shaky but I could stand.

"I did a job for her back in 1816." William had gone to the sink and began washing the blood from his face and arms with a vigor that spoke of revulsion.

"What kind of job?" I asked. I retrieved my blasting rod and put it away.

"Internal matter to the Unseelie Court," he said drying his hands. "I can't tell you anymore than that or the bargain will have been broken."

There was something about that date that I couldn't remember. It disturbed me but I needed to focus on the here and now. I looked at the body of the vampire. Murphy wouldn't like having to clean up another mysterious death in a hotel room. Technically the vampire wasn't human and technically it did not fall in her jurisdiction. But a White Court vampire was human to all outward appearances and the cleaning staff would find it eventually. There were spatters of blood all over the place. Some had even hit the ceiling. The vampire's face was pulped and its head looked misshapen. A human fist with the striking force of an ogre was as devastating as a sledgehammer. My god. How were we going to explain this?

"Don't worry about that one, Mr. Dresden," William said coming up next to me. He was pulling on a pair of jeans. "I know someone who owes me a favor. Besides, your friend Butters would have a hard time explaining why he is one corpse short. This one will save us a lot of trouble."

"Yeah?" I said wryly. "But what about his partner?"

I almost slapped myself in the forehead. Murphy was out in the open with another one of those things around! I lunged for the phone.

"Murphy." Karrin's voice came over the line flat and even, the way she always answered.

"Karrin, it's Harry," I said trying to stay calm.

"Harry, damn it!" Murphy cursed. Her voice suddenly filled with tension. "I was wondering when the hell you were going to call. I was just about ready to come in there."

"Murph, listen. I want you to start the car and drive around the block a couple times," I said. There must have been something to the tone of my voice too because I heard the engine start.

"What's going on?" Karrin asked.

"A vampire was waiting for us."

"Was?" she asked.

"We handled it."

"Handled? How?" She must have been taking lessons from McAnally on brevity.

"Quickly." I shrugged. "Messily."

"Great," Karrin grunted. "Anyone else see this?"

"No. It was inside the room when we got here. One of the Malvora Clan. It was over pretty quick."

"Either of you hurt?"

"I'll need to wear a turtleneck for a week or so but nothing permanent."

"What about the body, Harry?" Karrin sounded pissed and worried like a mother that just watched her kid jump out of a tree house.

"William said he knows somebody that owes him a favor," I said trying to comfort her.

"Damn. I did not just hear that," Murphy growled. "You need to get out of there. I knew this was a bad idea."

"It might be bad if you pick us up where we got out," I said thinking fast. I didn't know this area all that well but I was pretty sure I could navigate out of the alley. "Pick us up at that big coffee house on the corner. The one with the bookstore."

"Uncommon Grounds. When?"

"I'm not sure. We need to take care of a couple things and William still has to make a phone call." I checked the clock on the night stand. "Say about thirty minutes."

There was nothing spooky about the elevator on our way down. There was no weird vibe to the lobby. The service hall was just a hall. The old deserted laundry room was nothing but a dimly lit basement. Even the tunnel was as normal as an old bootlegger's tunnel could be. House Malvora of the White Court feed on fear and they can cause fear in their prey. I had little first hand experience with such things but it surprised me that one vampire could project enough power to unsettle me at such a distance. That guy must have been bloody well OLD. Madeline Raith had been able to affect an entire night club with her charms but William and I had been nearly a full block away. I had to wonder who else had been affected by the projection of fear.

William left his key card in a conspicuous place near the bottom of the ladder. His contact would need it to get to the body. We had searched the vampire but there had been nothing but a roll of twenties, some chewing gum and a small automatic. William had pocketed all of it. He was now dressed in an old field jacket that looked like it had seen a lot of use, jeans, work boots and a University of Alaska Seawolves hockey jersey. The little automatic rode in the field jacket's right pocket. Murphy's jacket and the other things William had been wearing were stuffed inside a blue gym bag hanging on his shoulder.

As we pushed the dumpster back over the steel plate William told me, "At the exchange there will be two of them and they are likely to have a few mortals around."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"About the mortals?" He gave me a level look. "First Law of Magic."

"So the mortals will be there to stop me." I considered that for a minute. I wouldn't be able to kill them but there were plenty of things I could do just short of that. On the other hand I'm not the most subtle wizard on the council. If I misjudged things just a bit, one of them might die. But I also had a gun. As far as the White council was concerned I could cap as many fools as I liked and they wouldn't do a damn thing to me. Murphy might but the Council wouldn't care.

"I'm not going to let the vampires take me, no matter what, Mr. Dresden," William said following me down the alley.

"The Skavis guys aren't the only vampires after you," I told him as we came to a narrow street running behind the buildings. "Lara Raith and her house are interested and don't forget that there is still one agent of House Malvora out there too. Maybe more than that."

"Then we shall have to cause them to lose interest." He scratched at the stubble on his chin. "Any ideas?"

"They don't know why Danica died," I told him. "I doubt they'll take my word for it."

"Does this Lara know what these Skavis agents are planning?" he asked.

"I think so. Maybe." I had a plan. All I needed to do was figure out a few details. "If not, she soon will."

"What is this Lara Raith like?" William asked interrupting my thoughts.

"Smart. Scary. Treacherous. Pretty much everything a White Court vampire always is but more focused and a lot more ruthless." I had previously described her as a smart, scary bitch but I had mellowed over the past few months.

We made it to the coffee shop and waited inconspicuously near the newspapers until Murphy pulled up. As soon as the doors were closed she pulled out into traffic.

"Well, I've got some news," she said driving back towards her place. "I don't know if this is good or bad but after you phoned me I got a call from Rawlins. That green sedan Molly 'creamed' this morning still had an occupant when the investigating officer arrived."

"Dead?" I asked.

Murphy nodded. "Head wound. The report said that it looked like a bullet wound but part of the right hand was missing and there were lacerations all along the right arm. So it could have been some kind of fragmentation."

"I thought that arm was drawn back a little limply," I said with a bit of satisfaction. "I need to go by my office for a couple minutes."

"You really blew the gun up with just a spell?" Murphy looked amused. "Next thing you know they'll be having you light cigarettes from twenty feet away."

"Nah. Smoking's unhealthy," I scoffed.

"And hanging out with you isn't?" Murphy drove us towards my office. After I had taken care of an errand we headed back to her place where we would build on my ideas for how to end this situation and walk away with our lives and Butters intact.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

"Are you sure it's safe leaving him alone with Molly?" Murphy asked as we drove to Mac's. We had just left her place after a few hours of debate and speculation. In the end we had come to the conclusion that we needed a little more information before we could make a plan for ending this. Now if only we could get the vampires to play along.

"He isn't going to try anything," I said. "He needs us."

"He could just bolt and leave us in the lurch." Murphy observed.

"He's smart enough to know that the vampires are still after him and they could find him again if they want to," I said.

"Did he really beat one to death?" she asked for the second time.

"I watched him do it," I assured her.

"And all he wanted was those gloves?" Karrin shook her head. "Seems odd."

"He made a point of selecting specific things while we were there," I told her. "He made a fuss over his belt and he dug through one of his bags to get that jersey he's wearing."

"Think there's something special about them?"

"I'd say so." I considered it for a minute. "What it is I couldn't tell but there was something to them."

"What I still don't understand is why Danica looked the way she did," Murphy said.

"I'm not entirely sure either, Murph." I rubbed my chin. I was going to need a shave soon. "What I saw in the hotel room makes me think that her life force exploded."

"What?" Murphy shot me a look like I was crazy.

"Remember how I told you the room seemed to be spinning through all the stages of life. Everything swirling around and around?" Karrin nodded and I went on. "Normally with my Sight I would see everything in all stages at once. Kind of like before, during and after photos all laid one on the other. But this was sequential. Start to finish and then back to start. William is like a never ending supply of life energy. So when Danica tried to... drink all of it, her cells burst in the physical realm while her demon exploded in the metaphysical realm. When that happened all that life spilled over into the room and disrupted the nature of the things there."

"So why didn't this Malvora guy explode too?" she asked.

"William isn't afraid of very much, I think." I had been wondering about that too. "The look on the vampire's face was like he wasn't getting the result he'd expected. Think of it like when you're sipping a soda through a straw and suddenly a piece of ice gets stuck in the bottom of the straw. The flow stops. I think that's how the vampire must have felt about William when he tried to induce fear."

"You know, Harry," Murphy said wryly. "You come up with some pretty weird analogies."

A couple minutes before six Murphy and I walked down the steps into McAnally's. It's an Old World style pub in the basement of a large office building. There are thirteen hand-carved columns, thirteen tables randomly spread through the place, thirteen mirrors and thirteen stools at the curving bar. The ceiling fans are just high enough for me to walk under them without losing any hair. All of that was to break up ambient or residual magic that might cling to the pub's patrons. McAnally's is a popular place with the local practitioners who are not White Council level. Magic and technology don't coexist well. That's why most of the light is provided by candles and why Mac cooks his steaks and everything else on a genuine wood stove behind the bar. McAnnally's is also neutral territory for all signers of the Unseelie Accords. That's why there is a sign clearly stating 'Accorded Neutral Ground' by the door. Theoretically, that made it safe for Murphy and me to meet face to face with a vampire of the White Court. Realistically, we were packing for bear.

Mac, himself, is a sinewy, bald man habitually dressed in a spotless white shirt and dark slacks. He is a man of few words so when he caught sight of me he gave me a meaningful look and then turned his eyes on a table near the back wall. Sitting alone with the nearby tables empty was Gray Eyes. Murphy and I walked over to him. Gray Eyes rose politely and smiled. It looked like he really meant it but one of the first things my brother Thomas had told me was that White Court vampires lie. They can lie so convincingly sometimes that they even believe the lies themselves. I didn't think this guy believed his smile any more than I did.

"Wizard Dresden," Gray Eyes said inclining his head slightly. "Sergeant Murphy."

"Hi," I replied cooly. "Who are you?"

His smile altered just a bit before he said, "Aemiliano Skavis. I doubt you would have heard of me."

"You're right," I said and pulled out a chair for Karrin. She shot me an irritated glance but sat. Murphy hates it when I get all gallant and stuff. What can I say? Chivalry isn't dead. I took my own chair and eyed Aemiliano. "Why did you kidnap my friend?"

"I needed to talk with you."

"Never occurred to you to just ask?" I said.

"You wouldn't have come if I didn't have some leverage," Aemiliano's smile was back.

"I might have," I lied.

"Mr. Dresden, there are more pressing matters to speak of." Aemiliano shifted in his chair and he leaned forward with his elbows on the table. "I have your friend. You have William Luton. Let's trade."

"Just like that?" Murphy said.

"I don't see why not," Aemiliano said reasonably. "I have little use for your friend. I must say though that he is the most neurotic person I've come across in quite some time. And why he seems to enjoy Polka music I have no idea."

"Polka will never die," I said with a flash of memory. I had to force myself to not smile.

"Maybe not, but your friend certainly will if you don't bring me William Luton," Aemiliano said. The smile was gone now. "I don't want to get caught up in some turf war with you, Mr. Dresden. That's not my style. Bring me Luton and my companion and I will leave Chicago tonight. No harm. No foul."

Aemiliano wasn't giving anything away by his body language. He wasn't going on with threats or posing. I had the feeling that he was very confident in what he was doing. I also had the feeling he had done this sort of thing before. That made me wonder. Either he was using an alias or he was really good at staying off the radar. Either way, it showed me that he was lying. Why? Because if he had tried this before and left people alive to talk, I would have gotten a briefing on him from someone with the Wardens. The White Council is old fashioned but they keep records better and much longer than most. Even if Aemiliano had kept a low profile, this sort of thing gets flagged. Aemiliano wasn't going to let Butters go and he sure wasn't going to let me walk away to tell Lara that he'd been around. White Court vampires are subtle. They like to strike from the shadows and leave no trace that they were ever there. Aemiliano was going to have to clean up his mess before he left. And that would mean killing Butters, Murphy, Molly and me. Oh goody.

"Would you mind if I had a word with my friend outside?" I asked him.

Outside Murphy turned on me. "Why out here?"

"Ssshhhh!" I hushed her. "Keep your voice low, Murph. I don't want him to hear us."

"Out here?" She frowned at me but did as I asked.

"I don't think so but maybe. Anywhere inside he'd hear us for sure." I looked at the door. No one was there. I didn't feel anyone in the area either. I kept my voice low anyway. "We're going to have to play along. He won't let Butters go. And he won't let us just walk away."

"Harry, this asshole has kidnaped one of our friends. A citizen I have sworn to protect. I'm not going to give him what he wants." She scowled at the door. "You aren't either, are you?"

"No. We're going to have to take him down," I said. "Him and his friend. I think I know a good place to do it but we're going to have to get him to agree to the trade on my terms."

"Can we take them?" Murphy asked. She wasn't actually afraid. Murphy had gone up against White Court vampires before and she knew exactly how dangerous they could be. She also knew that we'd come out ahead of the game playing on their home field at a serious disadvantage.

"I think we can," I assured her. "I think they'll try to get William from us before they try to kill us. And I'm not so sure they really know who he is."

"Why?"

"If they did they wouldn't be going about things like this. They wouldn't have tried to even get their hands on him." I shook my head. "William destroyed a minor Red Court house on his own. At least he says so. He might have had some serious help. He might be blowing smoke up our butts too but it didn't sound like it to me."

Murphy frowned as she mulled that over. "So they don't know what they're up against and we do. I suppose bringing in more cops would be a bad idea. They'd just get hurt or killed and Butters would die for certain. Same thing with the Wardens? "

"As far as the Council is concerned, this is a matter internal to the White Court," I said. "I think it would take a lot more evidence than what I have to convince them to help out anyway."

Karrin frowned harder. "Okay, Harry. Okay."

We went back inside and set up the meeting. I was a little worried when Aemiliano had no objections to the place I stipulated. I was even more worried when he held firm on the hour for the exchange. He was way too confident. William, I thought, must be right. Aemiliano would have goons with him.


	16. Chapter 16

**AN:** After a very long time away from this story I realized that I stopped working on it because I was not fully satisfied with this chapter even after editing it with the help of two of my reviewers. Fearlessgoddess2 and Rattraveler gave me some useful observations and I thank them both. Deciding to finish this story before I began any new ones I have edited this chapter again and have begun the final chapter. Thank you all for reading. This is by far my most popular story because of you.

**Chapter 16**

The last time I had been at this place Molly Carpenter was about to get her head cut off by Warden Donald Morgan. This was where Molly had been brought to the justice of the White Council. I was the one that had brought her. I was also the one that spoke in her defence. Naturally, they didn't like that one bit. They being the Merlin. I had stretched the trial out and got an assist from the Gate Keeper. I'm not sure how he knew what would happen next but just as things were getting to the point where I was going to have to throw down with Morgan the Gate Keeper showed up. Then things got very legalistic. The deciding factor came through a Way from the Nevernever. Michael Carpenter and my old mentor Ebenezer McCoy lead the retreating elements of a pack of warden cadets right into the proceedings. Long story short, Molly became my ward and apprentice.

The warehouse hadn't changed in all that time. There was still the stink of the docks and sounds from the harbor. The big chain-link fence was still there. The gate was open with the lock hanging in the chain that would normally secure it. The guard shack was empty, with no sign of the guard.

I'd picked up my car on the way back to Murphy's place, reasoning that if things went well, there would be no need for a quick get away. If things went bad, there wouldn't _be_ a get away. It had been crowded in the Blue Beetle with four humans and a two hundred pound Fu Dog. We had managed it by crushing Murphy, Molly and William into the back and letting Mouse ride in the passenger seat. Oddly, the big dog had insisted on being buckled in. It was like he didn't trust my driving. I'm no Mario Andretti but come on. We piled out of the car with the back seat passengers making grunting noises and Mouse wagging his tail smugly.

"We are evidently preceded," William said cooly.

"Yep," I said trying to sound nonchalant. This was the first big thing I was walking Molly directly into. I didn't like it but for the plan to work I needed her. I glanced at my apprentice. Her eyes were a little wider than usual. Her breath misting in the chill night air seemed to be coming a little faster. Molly was scared. "Molly, you okay?"

Her eyes snapped to me. Her lips pressed together. She gave a firm little nod and went back to staring at the warehouse. I wasn't sure what was going through her mind but she was holding it together. Mouse, perceiving Molly's anxiety, sidled up next to her and sat. Unconsciously she put her hand on his head and scratched behind his ears as though _she_ were reassuring _him_.

I looked to Murphy. Under the jacket she had previously loaned to William, Murphy had donned her body armor. Her usual sidearm rode in a holster on her hip and I knew she was packing two more in a shoulder rig concealed inside the jacket. I had briefly been tempted to tell her it made her look fat but a gentleman never tells a lady such a thing. Besides, Murphy was an excellent shot. I don't think she would kill me but this is Murphy we're talking about. She returned my look with an even, confident expression.

I stepped to the gate and pushed it open. It made no sound aside from the gentle rattle of the chain link against the frame. We stepped through. It felt like a scene from one of those Spaghetti Westerns. I just wished we were going in with Clint Eastwood. At least I had my big ol' Dirty Harry hand cannon. Apparently I wasn't the only one thinking of movies. Out of nowhere William started whistling. Murphy and I exchanged a quick glance. We couldn't help it. Both of us smiled. We knew the tune.

"Always look on the bright side of life," William sang in an authentic British accent before continuing to whistle. He continued the song as we walked towards the dimly lit door. Before we were half way there all of us, except for Mouse, had joined in. Our chorus dwindled to smiles and furtive looks as we finally reached our destination. I felt a prickle across the back of my neck. My instincts were tapping me on the shoulder again. We were not alone. I noticed Mouse's ears perk forward and then back as though he sensed something, too.

"Someone behind us," William murmured.

"Yep." Murphy made it sound casual. She kept her tone low, though.

"Let's get this done," I growled. I gripped my staff more firmly as we stepped through the big door into the weird lighting of the warehouse. Shadows lay at odd angles cast from sodium lamps hanging high over our heads. They hadn't been on very long. The electric buzz seemed loud in the apparently deserted structure. Boxes and pallets of machine parts were stacked everywhere in neat rows. A forklift sat to one side like some prehistoric beast in slumber. William began whistling softly again.

A voice, just loud enough for us to hear, drifted out of the shadows. "So you're here. I'm glad you're a man of your word."

"Yes. I'm here, you're here, Murphy is here. Which makes us all men of our word. Except for Murphy, who is in fact a woman." I said with a slight British accent.

Aemiliano seemed to materialize from the shadows between a couple of tall stacks of crates. I caught a hint of motion on the top of those stacks. Whoever was up there made no sound. I was pretty sure they were White Court. People, vanilla mortals, can not make no sound. Breathing, heart beat, what have you, all make some noise and if you try to move, the simple scrape of your clothing over whatever you are standing on makes noise however soft. Vampires can move in complete silence. They are good at it. It's a tool of their trade.

"You brought your dog," Aemiliano said puzzled.

"He has separation issues," I replied frankly. "Where's Butters?"

Aemiliano made a gesture and a tall, slim vampire stepped into the light next to him carrying a sobbing Waldo Butters. I could almost hear Murphy's teeth grind. Her hand twitched toward her gun but that was all. Mouse stopped breathing. His whole focus was taken up by the vampire holding Butters.

"What did you do to him?" I demanded. I fought hard to keep the snarl out of my voice. It wasn't easy.

"It was unintentional, Mr. Dresden," Aemiliano said. "I intended only to subdue him. His reaction was extreme. When this is over, perhaps he should see an annalist. Shall we make the exchange?"

"Exchange?" William rounded on me. "You didn't say anything about a goddamn exchange!"

"Would you have come if I had?" I asked him.

"I trusted you," William's tone was accusing. "You said the deal was done. We were going to pick up your friend and then we'd go our separate ways."

"We will," I told him.

"Treachery," Aemiliano chuckled. "I had been told you were ruthless, Dresden, but this was not expected."

At some unspoken command the two figures atop the crates leapt to the floor with preternatural grace. Clad in black BDUs with .50 calibre Desert Eagles and rapiers strapped to their hips they landed flat footed in unison to either side of William and seized his arms. He looked up into their silver flecked eyes. Mouse growled at the sound of footsteps behind us.

"Harry," Molly breathed.

I glanced over my shoulder to see two slim, dark skinned men blocking the door. They were dressed in what looked like bits of old military uniforms and they carried AK-47's. I thought they looked very much like the Somali gunmen I'd seen in various magazines after the Black Hawk Down debacle. That made sense, really. Somalia must be a rich source of despair. The House of Skavis would look at it the same way a snake looks at an unguarded nest of hatchlings. I turned back to Aemiliano.

"It's not your fault, Dresden," the vampire said in a solicitous tone. I felt something sinuous slithering amongst his words. "You never really had a chance. We were ahead of you the whole time. I've been doing this sort of thing for years and years and years. You couldn't win this one."

I realized then that the slithering, sinuous something was truth. Aemiliano was right. All my planning and scheming, everything I had done had been pointless. With that realization despair washed over me. Over all of us. Aemiliano and his cronies stood there smiling, drinking it all in. There was no way we could win. They were the White Court after all. We were just mortals. My grip on my staff slackened. My head drooped a little. I glanced at Murphy and Molly. They were going to be killed too. All because I had thought I was smarter than Aemiliano. All because I was arrogant enough to believe that I could out fox a creature who had been at this game for centuries. Foolishly, they had trusted me. Murphy had let her posture relax and her eyes were closed. A tear rolled down one cheek. Molly wept openly. Her hand was knotted into the hair by her right ear. It was the sort of gesture you see a child make when they are bereft of comfort. William slumped in the grip of the two vampires while they smiled. Even Mouse seemed to have been affected. The big dog did a thing very rare for him. He whined. But it was strange. Something about it cut through the depression. His tail wagged ever the slightest bit. Then I realized it was not just a whine. Mouse couldn't whistle but the tune was obvious if you knew what to look for. And the depression fell away like a bad memory. The vampire's will subsided.

My head came up and I grinned at Aemiliano. "Always look on the bright side."

The vampire's expression turned puzzled again. Then several things happened at once. William let out an absolutely unearthly battle cry and flung the guard on his left into the one on his right. There was a sound like two bags of coconuts being slammed on concrete and they went down in a heap. While that was startling enough, what Mouse did nearly took my breath away. There was a gray blur as the big dog shot across the open space and struck the vampire holding Butters like a two hundred pound cannon ball. I wouldn't have been surprised to see body parts go flying. Butters was still falling when Mouse rounded in his stride and snatched him by the collar. The big dog didn't pause long enough to let Aemiliano get a hand on him. He dragged Butters off into the shadows. Murphy was next to act. She spun like she was auditioning for a part in the next John Woo film and whipped out her two automatics. She unloaded on the two men in the doorway. I didn't know if she hit either of them but I was not going to worry about that. Murphy had my back.

"Molly!" I shouted over the din. The girl looked up at me with tear bleared eyes. Her hand came down from her hair. Her expression hardened and she vanished.

I caught Aemiliano with a blast from one of my force rings. It smashed him into the stack of crates he'd been standing in front of. Like most of the things around us it was made up of machine parts. Fifteen feet of merchandise collapsed on top of the vampire. He howled in rage and pain. Murphy was still firing at the two guys behind me and they suddenly decided to shoot back. They sprayed rounds at us without aiming. One clipped the hem of my duster and I could hear others whipping through the air around us. William took one in the side. He barked in surprise and folded over it but when he straightened I caught a glimpse of a deformed bullet as it dropped to the floor.

Suddenly the two vampires that William had slammed down were on their feet again. I banged the first one in the head with the end of my staff. I should have known better. Six feet of rune carved solid oak bounced off him as if it were made by Nerf. William, on the other hand, lashed out with one of his ogre hide gloves to flatten the other one. The fist hit the vampire so hard that the result looked like pretty good special effects from a monster movie. That vampire went down and it was not going to be getting up. White Court vamps are physically the weakest of the breed. Do enough damage to any vampire and they are as dead as anyone. White Court types could heal from most anything if given the chance. That blow from William had been too much. Think of Babe Ruth swinging at a water mellon.

Un-phased, my attacker back handed me across the room. Luckily I slammed into a pallet load of nuts, bolts and washers. It hurt but there was enough give to the loose hardware to cushion my duster wrapped body. I was pretty sure I would have whiplash but otherwise I would be alright. I got my head together and looked up in time to see William draw a sword. No. He had not been carrying one when we entered the warehouse. He reached inside his old field jacket and drew out nearly forty inches of cold, deadly, shining steel. Where the hell had THAT come from? The vampire danced lithely back and drew its own sword. William moved like he was an old hand at this sort of thing. Which wasn't surprising in retrospect. I mean, he had fought at Hastings! I have never before seen anyone that could match a vampire in a sword fight. They're just too fast. They know too many tricks. They're too strong. William didn't move as fast as the vampire. Not by a long shot. But his sword was always there to meet the vampire's attack. Pretty soon the vampire was seeping blood from a variety of wounds and breathing hard. For crying out loud. I'd seen Lara Raith at a dead sprint breathing like she was out for a casual stroll. The final move came so suddenly I don't think the vampire even knew it was dead until the devil tapped him on the shoulder. William's blade parried a vicious lunge then went snicker-snack. Two vampires lay in widening pools of their own pale blood.

"Harry!" Karrin's shout roused me from my fascinated daze. She was taking cover behind a big electric motor as the two gunmen continued to spray rounds from their AK's. I hadn't been much more than an observer so far. It was time I got my act together. I focussed and threw up a shield. The little charm bracelet on my left wrist grew warm as rounds bounced off the shield while I crossed the floor. Murphy was slipping a fresh magazine into one of her automatics when I finally reached her. There was a scattering of spent brass at her feet.

"About time!" she groused. "They keep ducking behind the door. One pops up to shoot while the other ducks back."

"Can't have that, can we?" I flashed her a smile and she grinned back.

The door they were using as cover was old. It was made from corrugated steel. Maybe double walled. Murphy's 9mm rounds were just not powerful enough to punch through the old metal at this range. Wisely, she had been trying to hit the gunmen when they popped up. It was like whack-a-mole with bullets. Only I'm guessing that these two had a lot of practice. Murphy chambered a fresh round and crouched, ready to go as soon as she had a clear shot. I summoned up my will and spoke a word.

"Solvos!"

There followed a screech of metal as bolts and screws sheered off of the door and the metal plates dropped like guillotine blades. I think the gunmen were more amazed than anything else. They hadn't been close enough to the door for the wreckage to fall on them. Murphy did her own pop up. Karrin has been a champion competition shooter for as long as I've known her. She's like a petite Sergeant York. Both gunmen dropped with neat little holes in their heads. Murphy doesn't like being shot at.

"Enough!"

Murphy and I turned to find Aemiliano clutching William by the throat. William was on his knees, his sword on the floor. Under his old field jacket the Seawolves jersey had been replaced by a shining coat of chain mail. It glittered with gold here and there. Another gift of the Shea. Bilbo Baggins had nothing on this one. Aemiliano looked bad. Blood smeared the side of his face. His shirt was torn and showed ribs poking through his skin. His right arm was a mangled mess and it looked like his right leg had been broken in the bargain.

"Enough, Dresden. I've won," Aemiliano said as he lifted William clear of the floor. "I have the immortal."

"Is that how you see it?" I asked dryly.

Aemiliano's eyes had gone completely silver. He was barely in control of himself. "Don't let your well known cockyness get the better of you. With him I'll be able to take you as I please. I'll be able to walk into your home and kill you any time I want. You can run, Dresden. You'll just die tired."

Aemliliano was exerting his will again. Depression crept towards me but it wasn't focussed. I think Aemiliano was going to go on for a bit more but William slipped the little automatic from his pocket and emptied it into the vampire's stomach. Such a wound would not kill even a mortal right away. Maybe if they went into shock it would. But damage-wise, it was not a quick kill. Aemiliano reacted like someone stung by a bee. He flinched back without letting go of William's throat. The vampire looked down at the newest of his wounds then at the immortal. Murphy and I watched as the vampires wounds knitted back together. His arm healed and his ribs drew back into the flesh. In a moment he looked like just a regular guy who'd had pink stuff splattered on him and his nice torn to ribbons clothes. But it wasn't over yet. Aemiliano's demon wouldn't quit feeding. I felt the currents of invisible force eddy around us. Spots began to flicker here and there on the vampire's skin and the energy in the room changed. The spots began to last longer and longer until they began to stay. The energy was a steady current flowing out of Aemiliano now. It was like standing in a gently moving stream of cool water. Then the spots spread and swelled. The vampire's flesh was blackening and seeping ichor. The effect was cumulative but the end came in a rush. Aemiliano screamed in agony or ecstasy as the final wave of life blasted out of him. I stagered at the sudden wash of energy. Murphy threw up her hand as if trying to block a physical blow. My head spun with the unexpected rush of life. My weariness disappeared. It was like pouring water on a wilted plant. When the wave passed, Aemiliano collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. William fell next to him. Murphy and I rushed to the immortal's side.

"Damn," William cursed. He struggled to a sitting position and eyed us glassily.

"Are you alright?" Murphy asked examining his throat where bruises to match mine were blossoming.

"Couple of days," he croaked. "Where's Molly?"

"I'm here." Molly appeared nearby with Mouse and Butters sitting at her feet. Butters was still sobbing. Mouse had pressed his reassuring bulk up against him and Butters had tangled his fingers into the big dog's mane. I went and knelt by him.

Magic that invades the psyche of any being is forbidden by The Laws of Magic enforced by the White Council and its Wardens. You can do a lot of damage to someone that way. You can even drive them insane. There are, however, gray areas of magic. Practices, that if properly, applied can be beneficial to the victims of psychic intervention. Not long before that night I had used such a technique to help a complete stranger to deal with a mental manipulation similar to what had been done to my friend and here I repeated the process.

"Dormio, dorme, Butters. Dormio, dorme," I whispered putting a gentle force of will into my voice. Butters instantly stopped his sobbing and drifted quickly into a deep, peaceful sleep. With any luck, his experience would seem like an especially bad dream. I laid him down curled in a fetal position next to Mouse who placed a gentle paw on the little guy's shoulder.

"You had better get out of here, Harry," Murphy said as I rose.

"Aren't you coming with us?" Molly asked.

"Can't. Forensics will know that a weapon belonging to me was used here. I'll have to call this in," Karrin told her.

"Thanks, Murph." It was an inadequate reward for all that she'd done. It was also all that I had to offer just then. Murphy was good people and it was enough for her.

We all piled into the Beetle again. This time Butters rode in the front and Mouse crowded into the back. We went to my place. Molly sat on the floor next to the couch where we had laid Butters. Mister rested sedately on the little guy's legs making purring noises whenever Butters stirred. My cat is like that sometimes. He knows. Mouse found a comfortable spot in front of the fire and William and I shared a quiet beer standing in my little kitchen. Nobody said much. It had been too long of a day.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

William caught a taxi back to his hotel about half an hour later. We had agreed to meet up at Mac's the next day. Molly nodded off to sleep leaning against the couch where Butter's was snoozing peacefully. Mouse was doing his impression of a bean bag chair and Mister was content to ignore the world, still perched on Butters' legs.

I was tired. Stress and excitement followed by peace and quiet does that to me. The effects of that wash of life energy pouring out of Aemiliano had gradually worn off like one of those little five hour energy drinks so many people seem to prefer to honest sleep. I covered Molly with a spare blanket and went into my bedroom. Before I could manage even to sit on my bed, though, I felt the need to go down to the lab and get one thing answered.

"Bob," I said conversationally as I reached the concrete floor. "I've got a question or two."

Bob's eye lights flickered in the sockets of the skull. "Hmm? Questions? At this hour?"

"Have you ever heard the name Wilfred of Luton?"

Bob's eye lights narrowed on me. After a beat he asked, "Where did you hear that name, Boss?"

"Is that a yes?" I asked.

"Wilfred of Luton? _THE_ Wilfred of Luton?"

"There might be others," I replied through a yawn.

"Not in a supernatural sense. Wilfred of Luton, also known as Wilfred Kinslayer or Wilfred the Damned, is known as the man that assassinated Cadmael Beddau, a very powerful Welsh wizard during the early years of the reign of William the Conqueror of England. Is that the Wilfred you mean?"

"That's him," I said taking a seat at my table. "What can you tell me about him?"

"The less I say the safer you likely are, Harry," Bob said frankly. "He was a very dangerous sort of man for a mortal. Even when he was _just_ a mortal. There are stories about him all over the world and throughout the Nevernever. Rumors and speculation abound. If there was something done that couldn't be ascribed to someone specific it was generally attributed to Wilfred. I've heard tell that he was one of the chief vassals of the Earl King for a time. Supposedly he was once the lover of Maeve and of Jenny Greenteeth. I suppose he was the only man that could survive her affections. Hhmmnn... I wonder... Oh well. Let's see. He did some work for the White Council back in the 1400's. You might be able to find some information in the archives at Edinburgh. I haven't heard anything of him since the mid nineteenth century."

"What about the year 1816?" I asked. I didn't feel quite so tired now.

"The Year of the Great Bargain?" Bob's eye lights drifted up suggesting he was remembering something. "It is the only time I know of when the two Faery Courts united in common interest. It was actually 1815 that the pact was made. From the very little bit that I have gathered, Summer entreated Winter for help. A bargain was struck. Winter threw in with Summer and whatever the threat was, they eliminated it. As payment for the help, Summer allowed Winter to rule for an entire year. Before you ask: I do not know what was threat enough for such a bargain to be struck. The only thing I can tell you is that a rumor spread about a rebellion among the vassals of Summer. A lot of Fae won't even mention that there was such a rumor. If you will take my advice, Boss, don't go asking about it."

"The Year Without a Summer?" I had felt there was some significance to that year when William mentioned it to me. "He said that the gloves were a gift from Lady Winter."

"Who said? What gloves?" Bob asked.

I hadn't realized I was speaking out loud. That's what I get for talking to myself all of the time. I said, "William... Wilfred told me that. It's not important, Bob. If I remember right there was a volcanic explosion in 1815. It was somewhere in the Pacific. So much debris was thrown into the air that it affected the whole planet. Kind of a miniature ice age."

"Yes. It affected the world for several years. Harry, are you telling me that you met Wilfred of Luton?"

I spent a few minutes describing the events of the last two days to Bob.

"Wow, Boss. Just wow." I'd rarely seen Bob impressed. Clearly what I'd just told him had done so. "What amazes me is that he's been able to stay off the radar for so long."

"He's pretty cautious. Bob, any idea what the nature of his curse is?"

"Cadmael Beddau set his dogs on Wilfred. Loosely translated from the original Welsh he said that Wilfred would never be able to rest until the dogs had torn him limb from limb and his life's blood soaked the Earth. The dogs have chased him ever since. Somehow he stayed ahead of them."

"Real dogs?"

"Mmhm. They were. I suppose they're like him now."

I thought about that for a minute and an idea, a notion of what bargain might have been struck to entice Wilfred to help the Faery Courts. The gloves, mail coat and sword were impressive but there seemed more to the story than that. My theory would also explain why Mouse had seemed so at ease around the immortal.

* * *

I met with Lara at my office the next day. I had arrived early to write out a proper report for her and a copy of it for the Council. I didn't put it on parchment but I figured they could deal with it. I had a few things I wanted to know before I was willing to let Lara go. There were some suspicions I wanted to clear up. Lara knocked lightly before entering. She was wearing a head scarf and a stylish light coat. I couldn't help but wonder if she owned any shoes with less than a three inch heel.

"So how did things turn out, Harry?" she asked unexpectedly accepting a cup of coffee.

"I think Butters will be fine," I told her. "I've made arrangements for him to meet with a healer from the Council. Off the record of course. I haven't spoken with Murphy yet. She'll make it clear that the incident at the warehouse was something mundane."

"And what of the killer of my cousin?" Lara sipped the coffee and made a face before adding two creamers and a lot of sugar.

"I have a question about that for you, actually," I said evenly.

"Indeed?" She raised an eyebrow at me.

"When did you learn that Danica had betrayed you?"

"Betrayed me?" Lara looked interested. There was the slightest flicker in her eyes.

"I figure it was after she was found dead." I sipped my own coffee watching her over the rim of my cup. "I think what happened was that she saw a chance to move up in the Court. I think she lured William Luton down to the Lakeview Hotel where you would have no one watching. Danica was going to incapacitate him so that either Skavis or Malvora could take him. I'm not sure which she was working with but my money is on Skavis. Once she got William into the room, they got "busy". It was her hunger that caused her death. You saw what happened to Aemliliano when he tried to feed on William."

Lara cocked her head slightly to one side regarding me the way a panther regards another panther. A slow smile spread on her strawberry lips. "I saw. What happened after Danica died?"

"I haven't asked William yet but it's not too difficult to put together." I sipped coffee again. "He got spooked. Danica must have been using her charms on him to get him to go to the hotel in the first place. He told me one reason he went but I'm sure there were more. When William got his wits back, he threw on his clothes and got out of there. I figure that either Skavis or Malvora picked up his trail outside the room or more likely outside the hotel. William's been at this game longer than even you. He was able to stay ahead of pursuit until he got to the train platform. Maybe he was going to board the train. Maybe he was just going to do what he did. A suicide in such a public place attracts a lot of attention. Since the White Court doesn't like to operate so openly, William's pursuers drifted away. In any event they did try to pick him up the next day at the morgue."

"Aside from the obvious, why did they want him?" Lara licked a drip of cream off the rim of her mug. It was damned distracting but I kept my mind on business.

"The same reason they tried the coup attempt in the Deeps," I said. "Power. Both Skavis and Malvora thought they could use William to fuel an army."

"An army?" She smiled coolly.

"The White Court, unlike the Red or the Black, has to wait for their children to grow up before they can become full members of the Court. Physically you are the weakest of the vampires. Black court shrug off wounds that are anything less than fatal. Reds can absorb damage and keep on coming. As long as they can drink while they are fighting, Reds are pretty invincible. For all of your abilities, Lara, your people aren't suited to direct confrontation the way the other Courts are. But if you had a ready source, a reservoir of life energy, right there on the battlefield with you the White Court could heal their wounds as readily as the Reds. The White Court could become vastly more potent than either the Red or the Black. Your one great advantage over them is that you don't have to use two gaggilion sun block to operate during the day." I slid a copy of my report across the desk to her. Lara lifted it and read.

"You make no mention of this theory in your report," she observed. Her eyes had narrowed ever the slightest bit. The corners of her mouth barely turned up.

"I would prefer you remained a living, breathing ally," I said with only the hint of a smile. Lara smiled back just a little. It was what she had said to me while we hunted for her cousin Madeline and the mercenary Binder the night that her hair had gotten burned off. "Besides, the Council would think that I was being paranoid again. They would want proof and I haven't got any."

"And the Council has no interest in a war at this time," Lara said as she slipped my report into her bag. She produced an envelope and laid it in front of me. Then she got out her check book. I blinked when I looked at the check. I hadn't seen that many zeros for a while.

"I certainly have no interest in a war. Not with you. Not with my own blood. Thank you, Harry." Lara got up and went to the door. She turned back with her hand on the nob. "Thomas says hi."

* * *

McAnlly's was not so very crowded when I met with William later. He was chatting to Mac at the bar. Mac's portion of the conversation amounted to a few ernest nods and the occasional smile. When William caught sight of me from the corner of his eye he said something else to Mac and they shook hands before William turned to me. Mac was already placing a brown bottle of his micro-brew on the bar for me.

"So did you get things sorted out with Lara?" William asked without preamble.

I nodded my thanks to Mac and pointed to a table in the corner as far from anyone else as I could get. For once I had matched Mac for brevity. William followed me to the table and we sat. I looked at him carefully for a moment before I spoke.

"Lara understands that you would be of no practical use to her," I said. "That doesn't mean that some White Court hit team won't try something like this again. It could start all over for you."

"It could," William said with a shrug. "Probably won't for a decade or two. They come around now and then."

"You were not entirely honest with me back at Murphy's place," I said. I had had time to think through his statements about Danica and how she had ended up dead. "I know a little more about you now. You're a sword for hire."

William eyed me but said nothing.

"Here's what I think," I said and proceeded to tell him what I had told Lara.

William nodded in a noncommittal fashion. His eyes gave nothing away.

"I think that Lara got scared. She didn't know how Danica had died," I went on. "The whole thing suggested some form of magic had been involved. You were missing. I think she was trying to cover her ever so shapely ass when she called me in. After all, if the White Council tipped to the shenanigans her folk were pulling there would have been no questions asked. The Wardens would have started lopping off heads as fast has they could and after what happened to Duke Ortega, Lara knew she wouldn't be safe behind her walls."

"She also needed to know who was working against her inside the Court," William added.

"That and she needed them dead but not by her own hand," I agreed.

William sipped from his beer and then with narrowed eyes he pointed a blunt finger at me. "Catspaw."

"A well paid one." I nodded.

"Anything else?" he asked.

"I think I figured out why you're still alive."

He raised and eyebrow. "Do tell."

"Cadmael Beddau never cursed you to live forever," I told him. "That makes absolutely no sense. A dying man doesn't go through a complex and prolonged thought process before he casts a death curse. He set his dogs after you. They were supposed to kill you. Only you were able to outpace them. I figure you crossed some open water or something that would hold them up. But they never gave up the chase. They couldn't, because they had become instruments of the curse. So you fled to where they couldn't go. At some point you made a bargain with one of the Fae. Someone powerful. Dogs like you, Mr. Luton. They are curious about you. They are comfortable in your company. No dog would ever harm you. That's the trouble with bargaining with a Faery. They never tell you to read the fine print. You can not die because Cadmael Beddau's dogs like you."

"Sad thing is," William said tiredly. "I like them too. We travel around. I try to get killed now and then. They wag their tails when I get home. We're comfortable with each other."

I'm not sure why I said then what I said but I think it was the look on his face. Maybe it was more than that. I don't know.

"I know somewhere you could make a real difference if you wanted to."

He looked up from his beer.

"South America. The Fellowship of St. Giles."

"I've heard of them." he said with that musing quality to his tone again.

"I know someone," I said. "They could use a man with your experience. It would be a noble cause."

"Not many of those left," he sat up a little straighter. "South America, you say? I haven't been there in a long time."

* * *

I drove Molly back to her parent's place that afternoon. Michael was understanding about the truck. Charity was quietly angry at first but when she understood that Molly had chosen to go along of her own free will and that I had tried to talk her out of it Charity was openly angry. Mostly with Molly.

"Harry," Michael said in a low voice. "I think you don't want to be here for the rest of this."

I told him that Mike would get his truck back to him as good as new in a few days and that the bill was on me. It was the very least I could do and for once I actually had the funds to make good.

* * *

I spoke with Murphy a couple of days later and she assured me that the mess at the warehouse had been chalked up to an international child slavery ring that had been mysteriously crushed by the local crime boss. As outlandish as that sounds there were two reasons it would go over big. First is that it is a well known fact that "Gentleman" Johnny Marcone deals in everything illegal except children. He has no mercy on anyone who would harm a child. It is the one thing, in my opinion, that separates him from all of the rest of the scum in this city. The second reason the story would fly is that it was more believable than saying we had whacked a bunch of vampires and their minions. Vampires don't exist anymore than faeries or ogres. I can actually say that with a straight face.

After I hung up with Murphy I settled back with a beer and petted Mouse for a bit. I wondered what the next phone call would bring. Maybe it would be something simple like rescuing a child or saving someone from a burning house. I shook my head. My life is never that simple.

* * *

**AN:** I wish to thank everyone for reading and especially those who reviewed. I know it was a very long time for this chapter to be posted but I explained my reason in the last Author's Note. I do apologize. I will try to avoid such things in the future.

I would also like to thank the proprietors of the C2s that have been so kind as to add this story to their communities; Crystal Shards, Respectably written and The True Dresden Files. Thank you all.

S.C.


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